International Journal of Engineering & Technology, 7 (3.

1) (2018) 178-182

International Journal of Engineering & Technology

Website: www.sciencepubco.com/index.php/IJET

Research paper

Voltage Regulation Using STATCOM with PI and Adaptive PI

Controls
1 2
S. Felix Stephen , Dr. I. Jacob Raglend
1
Assistant Professor, Department of Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering, Noorul Islam Centre for Higher Education,
Kumaracoil, India
2
Professor, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, India
*Corresponding author E-mail : [email protected]

Abstract

In power systems, voltage instability problems occur due to its continuous demand in heavily loaded networks. So it is essential to stabi-
lize the voltage levels in power systems. The stabilization of power systems can be improved by Flexible Alternating Current Transmis-
sion System (FACTS) devices. One of the FACTS devices named Static Synchronous Compensator (STATCOM) injects the compensat-
ing current in phase quadrature with line voltage and replicate as inductive reactance to produce capacitive power for the AC grid or as
capacitive reactance to draw inductive power from the AC grid for controlling power flow in the line. This paper proposes Adaptive PI
control over conventional PI that normally self-adjusts the controller gains under disturbances and helps in improving the performance
and attaining a preferred response, irrespective of the change of working conditions. The work is implemented under
MATLAB/SIMULINK environment. This method performs more efficient than the original PI with fixed control gains and also im-
proves the system response speed consistently.

Keywords: Adaptive control; Proportional Integral (PI) control; Reactive Power; STATCOM; Voltage stability

features and basically it is load constancy. Voltage stability is of

1. Introduction four types as,
Large disruption
The stable operation of power system has become a significant Small disruption
problem for a secured system operation. Power system instability Transient
may occur due to large number of interconnections; more power Longer term
transmissions through long transmission lines; new technologies;
increased power consumption in heavy load areas; use of more
number of induction machines and local uncoordinated controls.
The stability of power system is that for a given early operational
condition, it is the capability to use a state of operating steadiness
when open to any physical distraction, with maximum of the sys-
tem parameters controlled so that nearly the whole system rests
unspoiled. Voltage stability is a dangerous stability problem in
refining the security and consistency of power systems. Voltage
stability is the ability in upholding stable voltages at every buses Figure 1. A voltage stability phenomenon
in the system and also maintaining or restoring balance between
demand and source of load from its specified early working cir- 1.1. Causes of Voltage uncertainty
cumstances under disturbances. Another problematic, Voltage
collapse highly complex voltage insecurity is the sequence by • Surge in load demand
which the assembly of voltage instability leads to an unusual con- • Failure to meet reactive power request
dition of small voltages blackout or blackout in important parts of • Disorders such as system errors, circuit constraints or small per-
a power system. Such voltage collapse has some symptoms like turbations
heavy reactive power flows; low voltage; heavily loaded systems • Critical load components
and inadequate reactive support. Generally, sufficient reserves will • Complex loads in transmission lines
be available those settle to a steady voltage level [1]. Though, • Too distant voltage sources from the load centres
system instability may occur because of the combined effect of • Very low generation
system conditions and events that the deficiency of added reactive • ULTC action during low voltage conditions
power that leads to voltage downfall. Thus the system meets a • Uncoordinated control and protective systems
partial or total collapse. • Deficient load reactive compensation.
Figure 1 shows the voltage stability phenomenon. In power sys-
tems, voltage steadiness is worried with load regions and load
Copyright © 2018 Authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted
use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
International Journal of Engineering & Technology 179

1.2. Statcom

Power electronic devices play a dynamic part in power transmis-

sion and distribution applications. For stable and increasing
transmission systems, reactive power compensation techniques are
efficient and also economical. And FACTS devices have been
familiarised for stability control and the topical device STATCOM
substitutes the synchronous condenser by a converter i.e., a volt-
age source inverter VSI is used with a fixed dc link capacitor. In Figure 4. STATCOM - Equivalent circuit
VAR control the bus voltage and speedy control of power factor Figure 4 shows the STATCOM’s equivalent circuit.
utility will be improved by a set of capacitors. The use of this In this structure, consider
device has more advantages like speed of response over conven- Rs – Resistance in series to voltage source inverter.
tional methods using thyristorised converters. Rs = inverter conduction losses + transformer winding
resistance losses.
Ls – Transformer leakage inductance.
Rc – Resistance in shunt with capacitor.
Rc = capacitor power losses + inverter switching losses.
In Figure 2,
Val, Vbl, Vcl - 3Ø bus voltages
Vas, Vbs, Vcs - 3Ø output voltages
ias, ibs, ics - 3Ø output currents [3], [4]

Figure 2. STATCOM in power system The mathematical expressions of the STATCOM are given as [8],
[9]:
Static Synchronous Compensator of FACTS family is a device
that is connected in shunt to the system as shown in Figure 2. It is (2)
a 3Ø voltage system that lets both generation and intake of reac-
tive power. It comprises of the blocks namely coupling transform-
er, measurement system, inverter/converter circuit, controller and (3)
a dc-link capacitor. Figure 3 gives its steady-state capability. IQ,
the reactive current can be fixed within its extreme inductive and
capacitive bounds even during very low voltage circumstances. (4)

- (5)
Through abc/dq transformation, the above equations can be
written as

(6)

Figure 3. STATCOM characteristics

The reactive power yield is toughly dependent on the firing angle

“a” of thyristor. And the shifting in phase between the STATCOM
voltage and the bus voltage decides the firing angle “a”. Based on
this firing angle, the dc capacitor charging state changes and so the
amplitude of STATCOM bus voltage E differs. The injected reac-
tive current in power system is determined by this variance in
amplitude of network voltage and bus voltage of STATCOM in
addition to leakage reactance XT of transformer.
where,
(1) and – corresponding d and q currents of
Without a STATCOM, the voltage drops, when the load connect- ;
ed is highly inductive or if there is a surge in the active power K - factor relating the dc voltage and the highest value of phase
which is drawn by the load. But with an applied STATCOM, there to neutral voltage;
is a flattened voltage profile, because of capacitive power delivery - dc voltage;
for lower voltages and inductive power delivery for higher voltag-
α – leading phase angle of the output voltage with respect to bus
es due to a lower demand in load. Also at the same time, because
voltage;
of the device’s capacitive power support, higher transfer of power
ω - angular rotational speed;
can be achieved to the load [2].
- d and q axis voltage conforming to
.
2. Statcom Control Model
The active and reactive powers of the system can be determined
by,
(7)
180 International Journal of Engineering & Technology

(8)

The old-style control approach can be determined based on the

equation shown above [5], [6].

Figure 7. Reference voltage curve

3.2 Control Equations

Figure 5. Traditional STATCOM PI
Both the inner and outer loop controls are similar and the mathe-
As in Figure 5, the purpose of phase locked loop (PLL) is syn-
matical model is determined for PI controller gain adjustments in
chronizing on the positive order component of the 3Ø primary
the outer loop. Similarly inner loop gains can also be adjusted. Vdl
voltage. The PLL output is used to compute the voltage and cur-
(t) and Vql (t) can be computed with the d-q transformation.
rent components in the direct axis and quadrature axis. And the
measurement systems of STATCOM measure the d and q compo-
nents. The measured bus line voltage V m and the reference voltage
are compared and the required value of reactive reference
current is provided by the voltage regulator. Also the reactive (9)
current Iq of STATCOM and reference current I qref, are compared
and the current regulator provides the angle that the inverter volt-
age phase shifted with respective to the system voltage as its out-
put. STATCOMs’ capability of maximum reactive power can be
organised by the limiter7. (10)

3. Statcom - Adaptive Pi Control

(11)
3.1 Adaptive PI control
(12)
The PI control with fixed gain parameters of STATCOM may not
help as good in reaching the acceptable and desired response un-
der changing power system working conditions (e.g., transmis- (13)
sions or loads). So an adaptive PI control scheme of STATCOM
is offered.
(14)
(15)

Quicker system response can be achieved in adaptive PI control

than the original PI control. Also the necessary amount of reactive
power is similar whereas the adaptive PI approach runs quicker.
The dynamic control gains of the adaptive PI control are given by,

Figure 6. Adaptive PI control

(16)
A PI control method is used to get the desired responses. And
suitable parameters have to be found for PI controllers while in- Where
stalling a novel STATCOM in a power system. In Figure 6, V m (t) Ts is the sample time = 2.5 * 10-5 s (17)
is the measured voltage, Vref
A= (18)
(t) is the reference voltage, Iqref is the quadrature axis reference
current and Iq is the quadrature axis current. All these are in per- (19)
unit values. Kp_V and Ki_V are the proportional and integral gains
of the voltage regulator correspondingly. Similarly, the propor-
tional and integral gains of the current regulator are represented by (20)
Kp_I and Ki_I respectively. Figure 7 shows the progress of voltage
towards the steady state value that is fixed as the V ref. Where
B= (21)

(22)
International Journal of Engineering & Technology 181

3.3 Adaptive PI Control Flowchart

Figure 8 is a flowchart of STATCOMs adaptive PI control corre-

sponding to the diagram shown in Figure 6. The process initiates
at Start. The system bus voltage which is measured over time. V m
(t) is sampled to a favourite sampling rate and is then related with
Vss. There is no need to adjust any of the parameters, Kp_V (t),
Ki_V (t), Ki_I (t) and Kp_I (t) if, Vm (t) = Vss. And it is considered
as the smooth run of the power system. But the PI control will
begin if, Vm (t) ≠ Vss. The measured bus voltage Vm (t) is com-
pared with Vref (t). Then, gain adjustments on Kp_V and Ki_V are
done in the outer loop i.e., voltage regulator block, based on (16)
and (19), and thereby an updated Iqref is obtained through the
current limiter as shown in Figure 4. Then, this Iqref and measured Figure 9. PI STATCOM in MATLAB
q-current I q are compared. The control gains Ki_I (t) and Kp_I (t)
can be adjusted based on (20) and (22). At last the phase angle á Also Figure 11 and Figure 12 show the Adaptive voltage and cur-
is obtained and given into a limiter for output, that chooses the rent regulator blocks respectively. In Matlab/Simulink library a
required amount of reactive power from the STATCOM. standard STATCOM system sample is chosen. A 100-MVAR
Following, a small value of tolerance threshold such as 0.0001 p.u STATCOM is applied with a 48-pulse VSC and associated to a
is chosen. If | ( )| s greater than the tolerance threshold, the current 500-kV bus. And machines taken in this work are all dynamical
regulator and voltage regulator blocks have to be repeated until | models [8], [5], [6]. Also here, the control performance of STAT-
( )| becomes a reduced amount of than the tolerance threshold. COM is clearly focused in the bus voltage regulation mode. In the
Hence, the values for Kp_V (t), Ki_V (t), Ki_I (t) and Kp_I (t) are kept traditional method, the current and voltage regulator control gains
as constant. largely affect the regulation speed and the reactive power compen-
sation. This traditional control is now matched with the suggested
adaptive PI control method.

Figure 11. Adaptive PI_V block

Figure 12. Adaptive PI_I block

Table 1. Comparison table

Adaptive PI con-
Time PI control trol

0 1 0.8945 1 0.9402

Figure 8. Flowchart of Adaptive PI Control 0.199 1 0.9917 1 0.9938

4. Results and Discussions 0.2 0.5 0.4945 0.5 0.4962

0.202 0.5 0.4938 0.5 0.4955

The simulations of PI and Adaptive PI for STATCOM are done in
MATLAB/SIMULINK and the test system is shown in Figure 9 0.499 0.5 0.4933 0.5 0.4988
and Figure 10.
0.5 0.2 0.1965 0.2 0.1993

0.504 0.2 0.1948 0.2 0.1991

1 0.2 0.1946 0.2 0.1997

182 International Journal of Engineering & Technology

Table 2. Settling time 5. Conclusion

Methods used Settling time (s)

Voltage output Reactive power The comparison between Adaptive PI and original PI control is
done. And previously the voltage regulation stability problems
PI 0.997 0.84
have been discussed in many literatures with different STAT-
COM control methods using PI controllers. However, the PI gains
of the regulator are obtained as extensive studies of controller
performance and applicability or trial and error approach. Hence,
at any given operating point, the performance of the controller
may not be effective for all the times at a different working point.
A novel control method created on Adaptive PI control is project-
ed in this paper for STATCOM for voltage regulation. This adap-
tive PI control can dynamically self-adjust the control gains dur-
ing any disturbance so as to improve the performance to match
the desired response, irrespective of the change of working cir-
cumstance. In this simulation study, the suggested scheme of
adaptive PI control is related with the traditional PI control for
Figure 13. Comparison of Vout STATCOM which has pretuned fixed control gains. And it is
proved in Figure 13, Figure 14 that the proposed adaptive PI con-
trol gives outstanding performance even under different system
conditions. Figure 15 and Figure 16 illustrates the comparison of
current and angle alpha respectively. The result shows that the
proposed adaptive PI control performs more efficient than the
original PI with fixed control gains and also improves the system
response speed consistently. In future this work can be extended
in systems with multiple STATCOMs, and also optimization
intelligent techniques can be implemented to improve the perfor-
mance further

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Figure 14. Comparison of Q

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