Modelling and Controlling of UPFC for Power System Transient Studies 29

Modelling and Controlling of UPFC for Power

System Transient Studies
Ali Ajami1 , S.H. Hosseini2 , and G.B. Gharehpetian3 , Non-members

ABSTRACT The general structure of the UPFC contains two

The unified power flow controller (UPFC) is a typ- ”back to back” voltage source converters using in-
ical FACTS (Flexible AC Transmission Systems) de- sulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) or Integrated
vice that is capable of instantaneous control of trans- Gate Comutated Thyristor (IGCT) with a common
mission line parameters. This paper presents the DC link (Fig.1). First converter is connected as par-
transient model and control system of UPFC. The allel and another converter as series with transmis-
presented control system enables the UPFC to fol- sion line. The shunt converter is used to provide ac-
lowing the exchanges of line active and reactive power tive power demanded by the series converter through
reference values, regulating the DC link and bus volt- a common DC link. The series converter provides
age. The presented control scheme has the fast dy- the main function of the UPFC by injecting an AC
namic response and hence is adequate for improving voltage with controllable magnitude and phase an-
transient behaviour of power system after transient gle. The transmission line current flows through se-
conditions. The presented simulation results demon- ries converter and therefore, it exchanges the active
strate that the presented control system acts prop- and reactive power with the AC system. Since the
erly in the steady and transient states. It is shown converters are connected to a common Dc link, they
that by adding a supplementary control system to the exchange only active power and there is no reactive
shunt inverter control system, it is possible to balance power flow between them. It means that reactive
line current too. The presented control and power power could be controlled independently at both con-
system of UPFC was simulated and tested with the verters. Generally, this structure (Fig.1) enables volt-
PSCAD/EMTDC simulation program. age control by the shunt inverter and independent
active and reactive power flow control by the series
Keywords: FACTS, UPFC, Transient Modeling, inverter.
Power Flow, Line Current Balancing

1. INTRODUCTION
The high rating power electronic equipments have
made it possible to consider new technologies such as
the FACTS [1] for power flow control, secure loading
and damping of power system oscillations. FACTS Fig.1: General configuration of UPFC
equipments are an attractive alternative for increas-
ing the transmission capability of existing transmis- In the parallel branch of UPFC the active power
sion lines. is controlled by the phase angle of the converter out-
The UPFC is one of the typical FACTS devices put voltage. In the series branch of UPFC the ac-
that can provide simultaneous control of all or selec- tive and reactive power flows in the transmission line
tively basic parameters of power system [2, 3] (trans- are influenced by the amplitude as well as the phase
mission voltage, line impedance and phase angle) and angle of the series injected voltage. Therefore, the
dynamic compensation of AC power system. The active power controller can significantly affects the
UPFC can fulfill the functions of STATCOM [4, 5], reactive power flow and vice versa. In order to im-
SSSC [6, 7] and phase shifter meeting multiple control prove the interaction between the active and reactive
objectives. power control, a so called decoupled Watt-Var control
algorithm based on d-q axis theory was used [8, 9].
Manuscript received on January 10, 2007 ; revised on May
15, 2007. UPFC models have been presented by several au-
1 The author is with Electrical Engineering Department of thors [10]. In [11] the UPFC model consists of a con-
Azarbaijan University of Tarbiat Moallem, Tabriz, Iran, Email: trollable voltage source connected in series with the
[email protected]
2 The author is with Electrical & computer Engineer- transmission line and two current sources added in
ing Faculty of Tabriz University, Tabriz, Iran, Email: hos- shunt. The presented model in [12] consists of two
[email protected] ideal synchronous voltage sources connected in series
3 The author is with Electrical Engineering Department,
Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, Email: grp- and shunt with transmission line. The UPFC model
[email protected] given in [13] the DC link of UPFC is considered but
30 ECTI TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRICAL ENG., ELECTRONICS, AND COMMUNICATIONS VOL.5, NO.2 August 2007

the losses of converters and coupling transformers are With applying this transformation to equations (1)
not considered. and (2), the equations (6) and (7) can be obtained,
This paper presents a detailed UPFC model under respectively.
realistic conditions. In this paper the transient model
and control strategy of UPFC is presented. The pre- · ¸ · ¸
d
sented control system is capable of controlling the Vsrd (Vod − Vid )/Nsr + Rsr Isrld + Lsr dt Isrld − ωLsr Isrld
= d
line active and reactive power flows, regulation of the Vsrq (Voq − Viq )/Nsr + Rsr Isrld + Lsr dt Isrlq − ωLsr Isrlq
bus voltage and transient behaviour enhancement of (6)
power system after a transient condition. Also in this
paper a supplementary control system is presented for · ¸ · d
¸
line current balancing. The simulation results show Vshd Vid /Nsh − Rsh Ishld − Lsh dt Ishld + ωLsh Ishld
= d
the performance and effectiveness of the presented Vshq Viq /Nsh − Rsh Ishlq − Lsh dt Ishlq + ωLsh Ishlq
control strategy. (7)
In balanced conditions, the converters output volt-
2. THE DETAILED MODEL OF UPFC ages are basically a fundamental frequency sinusoid,
given the presence of harmonic filters. Hence, the
Fig. 2 shows the detailed model of UPFC. Where, converters can be accurately represented as voltage
Lsh , Lsr and Rsh , Rsr represent leakage inductances sources operating at fundamental frequency for tran-
of transformers and losses of inverters and transform- sient and steady state stability studies, where tran-
ers. The terms of Nsh and Nsr are the turn ratio sient oscillations are in the order of 2-3 Hz under bal-
of shunt and series coupling transformers. The series anced operating conditions. Consequently, the UPFC
inverters act as SSSC. It injects voltage, Vser, in se- can be modelled in the transient state as Fig.2.
ries with the transmission line. The KVL equations
of series and shunt inverters are:
3. CONTROL STRATEGY OF UPFC
d The control system of UPFC has two parts and is
Vsr − Vsr1 = Rsr Isr1 + Lsr Isr1 (1)
dt described in the bellow subsections.
d
Vsh1 − Vsh = Rsh Ish1 + Lsh Ish1 (2) 3. 1 Control System of Series Inverter
dt
For the DC link of UPFC we have: By controlling the magnitude and phase of line cur-
rent, line active and reactive power can be controlled.
d
Idc = C Vdc = Ishdc − Isrdc − Gc Vdc (3) The line current is controlled by series inverter in-
dt jected voltage (Vsr ). The Active and reactive powers
are calculated from equation (8).
· ¸ · ¸· ¸
Po 2 Vod Voq Isrd
= (8)
Qo 3 −Voq Vod Isrq
The relationship between line side and inverter side
currents is given by equation (9).

Isr1 = Nsr Isr (9)

The reference currents of series inverter are ob-
tained from equation (10).

Fig.2: Single phase equivalent circuit · ∗

¸ · ¸ ¸·
Isrld 2 1 1 Vod Po∗
−Voq
∗ =
Consider the d-q transformations [14] which are Isrlq 2 2)
3 Nsr (Vod + Voq Voq Q∗o
Vod
presented with the equations (4) and (5). (10)
Considering equations (10) and (6) the control sys-
    tem of series inverter can be formed as shown in Fig.3.
Vd Va
 Vq  = T (θ)  Vb  or Vdq0 = T (θ)V (4)
V0 Vc 3. 2 Control System of Shunt Inverter

  The magnitude of bus voltage depends on reactive

Cosθ Cos(θ − 2π ) Cos(θ + 2π ) power flowing from shunt inverter. Thus, by control-
2 3 3
T (θ) =  −Sinθ −Sin(θ − 2π 2π 
3 ) −Sin(θ + 3 ) , θ = ω0ling
t the reactive power in shunt inverter, the magni-
3 1 √
/ 2 1 √
/ 2 1 √
/ 2 tude of bus voltage can be controlled. The injected
(5) reactive power by shunt inverter is given as:
Modelling and Controlling of UPFC for Power System Transient Studies 31

Fig.3: Control system of series inverter

To obtain this signal, the active, P, and reactive, Q,

2 powers of the load side are calculated.
Qsh = (Vid Ishq − Viq Ishd ) (11)
3
The series inverter of UPFC controls the line ac- 3
P = P̃ + P̄ = (Vid Ild + Viq Ilq ) (19)
tive and reactive power flows by injecting the series 2
controlled voltage. The exchanged active power be-
3
tween series inverter and transmission line is caused Q = Q̃ + Q̄ =
(Vid Ilq + Viq Ilq ) (20)
to change the DC link voltage. Thus, for regulating 2
the DC link voltage, the shunt inverter must supply The unbalance current of load can be obtained as
demanded active power by series inverter and losses follows:
of two inverters. We have:
1
Iunbal = (Ila + Ilb + Ilc ) (21)
3 3
Psr = (Vserd Isrd + Vserq Isrq ) (12)
2 The desired value of Q̃, Q̄, P̃ and Iunbal is equal to
zero. Therefore, the shunt branch must compensate
2 these parameters. To extract undesired component of
Psh = Psr + Pdc + Ploss = (Vid Ishd + Viq Ishq) (13)
3 active power, i.e. P̃ , the instantaneous active power
signal must pass through a high pass filter with a cut
The Ploss and Pdc can be obtained from equations off frequency of 10 Hz.
(14) and (15). The d-q forms of the supplementary reference sig-
2 2 2 nal of shunt branch current are calculated using equa-
Ploss = Vdc Gc + 3Rsh Ish1 + Rsr Isr1 (14) tions (22) and (23).
µ ¶
dVdc P̃ Vid − QViq
Pdc = Vdc Idc = Vdc c (15) Id∗ = (22)
dt Vid2 + Viq2
From equations (11), (13) the reference currents of
P̃ Viq − QVid
shunt inverter can be calculated as: Iq∗ = (23)
Vid2 + Viq2
· ¸ · ¸· ¸ Now, they must be added to equation (18).
Ishd 2 1 Vid −Viq Psh
=
Ishq 3 (Vid2 + Viq2 ) Viq Vid Qsh
· ¸ ( · ¸· ¸ · ¸)
(16)
Ishld 2 Nsh2 1 Vid −Viq Psh Id∗
With considering the relationship of shunt trans- = +
Ishlq 3 Nsh1 2
Vid + Viq2 Viq Vid Qsh Iq∗
former and equation (16) we have:
(24)
Ish1 = Nsh1 Ish (17) The reference currents of shunt inverter can be ob-
tained by:

· ¸ · ¸  ∗  ¸·    
Ishld 2 1 1 Psh Vid −Viq
Isha IShld Iunbal
=
Ishlq 3 Nsh (Vid2 + Viq2 ) Qsh Viq Vid
 Ishb
∗  = T (θ)−1  IShlq  +  Iunbal  (25)
(18) ∗
Ishc 0 Iunbal
Also, in this paper the shunt converter can be used
to balance and harmonic compensation of line cur- Fig.4 shows the control system of this inverter. To
rent. Therefore a supplementary control signal must consider the losses of inverters the DC link voltage
be added to the control system of shunt converter. error must be added to this control system.
32 ECTI TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRICAL ENG., ELECTRONICS, AND COMMUNICATIONS VOL.5, NO.2 August 2007

Fig.4: Control system of shunt inverter

Fig.5: Generator circuit of gate pulses

Fig.6: Configuration of simulation system

tion is illustrated in Fig. 7 and the parameters of

∗ this system are listed in tables 1 and 2. As mentioned
Vdcerr = Vdc − Vdc (26)
earlier, the UPFC can control line active and reactive
Fig. 5 shows the gate pulse generator circuit of the power flows in steady state and transient conditions.
series and shunt inverters based on SPWM technique. Fig. 8 shows the reference and line active and reac-
In the presented SPWM technique, the error signal is tive power flows. Fig.8-a reveals that the presented
applied to a PI controller and the output signal of PI control system of UPFC not only responses to the
controller is the reference signal of SPWM technique. step changing in the active power, but also is able
to exchanging the direction of line active power flow.
4. SIMULATION RESULTS Fig.8-b shows the receiving end side reactive power
The two machine test system, whish is simulated and its reference value. Fig.8-c indicates the reac-
by PSCAD/EMTDC [15], is shown in Fig.6. The tive power flows with zero reference value when the
inverters consist of IGCT based three phase voltage active power is changed as Fig. 8-a. These figures
source converters. The transmission line configura- show the active and reactive powers are controlled as
Modelling and Controlling of UPFC for Power System Transient Studies 33

independently by UPFC. As it can be seen, during

transient conditions UPFC can limit the line active
power and receiving end reactive power flows to the
reference values. Fig.9 describes the DC link capaci-
tor voltage.
Fig.10 shows the line midpoint and the sending
end voltages. These figures indicate that the shunt
inverter control system is regulating the DC link and
bus voltages as properly.
Now we set the line active and reactive power flow Fig.8-a: Reference and receiving end side active
reference points to 100 MW and 0 MVAR, respec- power
tively. This time the load angle of generator No.2 has
been changed as shown in Fig. 11. The simulation
results are presented in Fig. 12 a and b. It is obvious
that UPFC can easily regulate and compensate line
active and reactive power flows.
An attractive application of UPFC is load current
balancing. The control system shown in Fig.4 has
added this capability to the conventional UPFC. The
unbalance load has been modelled as shown in Fig.6. Fig.8-b: Reference and receiving end side reactive
The simulation results are illustrated in Fig. 13. As power
it can been seen the sending end generator currents
are balanced.
Table 3 lists the harmonics and THD of line cur-
rent when the active and reactive powers are changed
as step.

Table 1: Power system parameters

V(KV) MVA f R+jLw(pu) Phase(deg.)

Gen. 1 230 400 50 .066+j0.4 0
Fig.8-c: Receiving end side reactive power when
Gen. 2 230 400 50 .066+j0.4 -10 Qref is zero

Table 2: Parameters of UPFC

Ccp Lep Rcp Ccs Lcs Rcs C
10µF 2 mh 5Ω 10µF 1 mh 5Ω 470µF

Fig.9: DC link capacitor voltage (KV)

Fig.7: Transmission lines configuration

Table 3: Harmonics of line current

Harmonics 3th 5th 11th 13th 13th THD
order Fig.10: Voltage of the UPFC connection point and
Values % 2 1.6 1 .5 .05 2.79 the sending endside voltage
34 ECTI TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRICAL ENG., ELECTRONICS, AND COMMUNICATIONS VOL.5, NO.2 August 2007

5. CONCLUSIONS
This paper presents the transient model and con-
trol system of a UPFC. The presented UPFC control
system can regulate line active and reactive power
flow and voltage at line midpoint. The presented
control system of UPFC not only responses to the
step changing in the active and reactive power, but
also is able to exchange the direction of line active
power flows. In this paper an additional control is
Fig.11: Step changes of load angle of Gen.2 added to shunt inverter control system to compen-
sate unbalance load current. The simulation results
indicate the fast dynamic response, validity and ef-
fectiveness of the presented control scheme. In this
paper the power circuit and control system of UPFC
are simulated by using the PSCAD/EMTDC simula-
tion program.

References
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[8] S. Round, Q. Yu, et al, “Performance of a Uni-
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System,” AC and DC Transmission Conference,
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[9] D. G. Cho, E. Ho. Song, “A Simple UPFC Con-
Fig.13: Sending end and load side currents trol Algorithm and Simulation on Stationary
Reference Frame,” ISIE Conference, Pusan, Ko-
rea, pp.1810-1815, 2001.
Modelling and Controlling of UPFC for Power System Transient Studies 35

[10] K. K Sen, E. J. Stacey, “UPFC- Unified Power Active Filters.

Flow Controller: Theory, Modeling and Applica- He is IEEE member and has over 250 papers in journals
and conferences.
tion,” IEEE Trans. on Power Delivery, Vol. 13,
No. 4, pp. 1453-1460, October 1998.
[11] E. Lerch, D. Povh, R. Witzmann, R. Hlebcar and
R. Mihalic, “Simulation and Performance Anal- G.B.Gharehpetian was born in Tehran,
ysis of Unified Power Flow Controller,” CIGRE, in1962. He received his BS and MS de-
August 1994. grees in electrical engineering in 1987
and 1989 from Tabriz University, Tabriz,
[12] J. Bian, T. A. Lemak, R. J. Nelson and D. Iran and Amirkabir University of Tech-
G. Ramey, “Power Flow Controller Models nology (AUT), Tehran, Iran, respec-
for Power System Simulations,” Power System tively, graduating with First Class Hon-
ors. In 1989 he joined the Electrical En-
Technology, Vol. 19, No. 9, pp. 15-19, September gineering Department of AUT as a lec-
1995. turer. He received the Ph.D. degree in
[13] Z. Huang, Y. Ni, C. M. Shen, F. F. Wu, S. electrical engineering from Tehran Uni-
versity, Tehran, Iran, in 1996. As a Ph.D. student he has re-
Chen and B. Zang, “Application of Unified ceived scholarship from DAAD (German Academic Exchange
Power Flow Controller in Interconnected Power Service) from 1993 to 1996 and he was with High Voltage Insti-
System- Modeling, Interface, Control Strategy tute of RWTH Aachen, Aachen, Germany. He held the position
of Assistant Professor in AUT from 1997 to 2003, and has been
and Case Study,” IEEE Trans. Power Systems, Associate Professor since 2004. Dr. Gharehpetian is a Senior
Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 817-824., May 2000 Member of Iranian Association of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers (IAEEE), member of IEEE and member of central
[14] P. Sh. Kundur, “Power System Stability and board of IAEEE. Since 2004 he is the Editor in Chief of the
Control,” New York, McGraw-Hill,1994. Journal of IAEEE. The power engineering group of AUT has
[15] PSCAD/EMTDC V4.1, Power System Simula- been selected as a Center of Excellence on Power Systems in
Iran since 2001. He is a member of this center and since 2004
tion Software User Manual, Manitoba HVDC the Research Deputy of this center. Since November 2005 he is
Research Center, CANADA, 2003. the director of the industrial relation office of AUT. He is the
author of more than 250 journal and conference papers. His
teaching and research interest include power system and trans-
formers transients, FACTS devices and HVDC transmission.

Ali Ajami was born in Tabriz, Iran

in 1973. He received B. Sc. and M.
Sc. degrees from electrical and com-
puter engineering faculty of Tabriz uni-
versity, Iran in the electronic engineering
and power engineering at 1996 and 1999
respectively. He received the P.H.D.
degree at 2005 in the electrical and
computer engineering faculty of Tabriz
university, Iran in the power engineer-
ing.
In 2005 he joined the electrical engineering department of
Azarbijan University of Tarbiat Moallem, Iran.
His main research interests include the dynamic and steady
state modeling and analysis of FACTS devices such as SSSC
and STATCOM, UPFC, harmonics and power quality compen-
sation systems such as Active Filters, UPQC. He has over 40
papers in journals and conferences.

S.H. Hosseini was born in Marand,

Iran in 1953. He received the M.S.
degree from the faculty of Engineering
University of Tabriz, Iran in 1976, the
DEA degree from INPL, France, in 1981
and Ph.D. degree from INPL, France,
in 1981 all in electrical engineering. In
1990 he joined the University of Tabriz,
Iran, as an assistant professor in the
Dept. of Elec. Eng., from 1990 to 1995
he was associate professor in the Univer-
sity of Tabriz and since 1995 he has been professor in the Dept.
of Elec. Eng. University of Tabriz.
From Sept. 1990 to Sept. 1991 he was visiting professor
in the University of Queensland Australia; from Sept. 1996 to
Sept. 1997 he was visiting professor in the University of West-
ern Ontario Canada.
His research interests include Power Electronic Converters,
Reactive Power Control, Harmonics and Power Quality Com-
pensation Systems such as SVC, UPQC, FACTS devices and