IEEE International Conference on Power, Control, Signals and Instrumentation Engineering (ICPCSI-2017)

Performance of Custom Power Devices for Power

Quality Improvement
S.Praveena B.Suresh Kumar
Mahathma Gandhi Institute of Technology Chaitanya Bharathi Institute of Technology
Hyderabad, Telengana, India Hyderabad, Telengana, India

Abstract— During Last decade power quality problems has altered the electric loads nature. These loads are the
become more complex at all level of power system. Recently, foremost sufferers of power quality problems. the non-
the Power electronics controllers are gaining concern to linearity of these loads cause disturbances in the voltage
provide the quality of power for both power suppliers and waveform. The utility will likely to deliver a low distortion
consumers. Nowadays a new concept of custom power is used
for customer’s satisfaction. This paper presents a
balanced voltage to its customers, particularly those with
comprehensive survey of custom power devises in order to sensitive loads. For the improvement of reliability and
improve quality of power. Custom power devices (CPDs) power quality of system, the custom power devices are
including active voltage conditioner (AVC), dynamic voltage introduced into the power system. DSTATCOM, DVR,
restorer (DVR), and distribution static synchronous AVR, APC etc. are some of the major devices used for the
compensator (D-STATCOM) are simulated on the modified improvement of voltage sag and swells. With the help of
IEEE-16 bus radial distribution system using Matlab/Simulink these FACTS devices[12], we are capable of reduce the
software to investigate performance efficiency of each device problems related to power quality.
under various Power quality disturbances including voltage
This paper presents a study on the performance of
sags, voltage interruption, and harmonic distortions. The
simulation results demonstrate that the effectiveness of each
the most renowned CPDs[1] including active voltage
device to compensate different types of power quality conditioner (AVC), dynamic voltage restorer (DVR), and
disturbances depends on the device’s arrangement and distribution static synchronous compensator (D-
characteristics. STATCOM) under different PQ disturbances. Each device
is modelled on the modified IEEE 16-bus[2] radial
Index Terms— Active Voltage Conditioner, Dynamic voltage distribution system using Matlab/Simulink software. Several
restorer, D-STATCOM, Custom power devices, Power quality, PQ disturbances including voltage sag, momentary voltage
Power quality disturbance. interruption, and voltage and current harmonic distortions
are generated to investigate and compare the advantages and
limitations of CPDs.
I. INTRODUCTION

The electric power system consists of three major II. POWER QUALITY DISTURBANCES
functional blocks those are generation, transmission and
distribution. As per reliability consideration in power Electricity consumers face power quality problem
system, generation unit must generate satisfactory amount at all stages of usage. Actually, Power quality[3] defines the
of power, transmission unit should supply maximum power assets of power supply distributed to the users in normal
over long distances without overloading and distribution operating conditions. New electronic equipments and
system must deliver electric power to each consumer’s devices are more prone to power quality problems[10,11].
premises form bulk power systems. Distribution system is Reduced PQ has become a major problem for both power
located at the end of electric power system and is directly to suppliers and customers. Poor PQ means there is enough
the consumer, so the power quality depends upon the state variation in the power supply to affect equipments and may
of distribution system. The reason for this is failure in the lead to their mis-operation or failure. It is unfeasible to
electric distribution network accounts for about 91% of the completely control disturbances on the supply system but
average consumer’s interruptions. Earlier, power system efforts and investments are made by utilities to avoid
reliability focused on generation and transmission system interruptions. Normal operations such as switching loads
due to capital investment in these systems. But today, and capacitors or faults and opening of circuit breakers to
distribution system is receiving more attention as reliability clear faults mainly cause disturbances. The most regular and
is concerned. Power quality issues are achieving a major important PQ issues that require practical solutions are as
concern due to the increase in number of sensitive loads. follows:
Also the extensive use of electronic equipment, such as
information technology equipment, adjustable speed drives A. Voltage Sag or Dip
(ASD), arc furnaces, electronic fluorescent lamp ballasts Voltage sag is defined as a drop in the normal
and programmable logic controllers (PLC) have entirely voltage level between 10 and 90% of the nominal rms
voltage at the power frequency, for durations of 0. 5

978-1-5386-0814-2/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE

912
 IEEE International Conference on Power, Control, Signals and Instrumentation Engineering (ICPCSI-2017)

cycle to 1 minute. It is clear from Fig:1 that voltage sag

reduces the magnitude of voltage. Connection of heavy
loads, start-up of large motors and faults in consumer’s
installation are the main reasons for voltage sag. Starting
of large induction motors can result in voltage dip as the
motor draws a current up to 10 times the full load current
during the starting. The Consequences of voltage sag are
disconnection and loss of efficiency in electric rotating
machines, tripping of electro-magnetic relays and Fig. 3. Long Interruption
malfunction of information technology equipment
namely micro-processor based control systems. C. Harmonic distortion
Harmonic distortion is the change in the waveform
of the supply voltage from the ideal sinusoidal waveform. It
is caused by the interaction of distorting customer loads
with the impedance of the supply network. Its major adverse
effects are the heating of induction motors, transformers and
capacitors and the overloading of neutrals. Power factor
Fig. 1. Voltage Sag
correction capacitors can amplify harmonics to unacceptable
values in the presence of harmonic distortion. Harmonic
B. Voltage Interruption distortion levels are described by the complete harmonic
spectrum with magnitudes and phase angle of 6 each
A very short but complete loss of supply is called
harmonic component.
an interruption. An interruption occur when the supply
voltage reduces less than 10% from its original value up to a
period of time not exceeding one minute. The number of
interruptions of the supply also increases voltage sag which
needs a proper mitigation.
a. Very Short Interruption
Very short interruption is defined as complete Fig. 4. Harmonic distortion
interruption of electrical supply for duration from few
milliseconds to one or two seconds. It is caused due to Harmonic distortion levels can be described by
insulation failure, lightning, system faults, equipment calculating total harmonic distortion (THD) which measures
failures and insulator flashover. The consequences of very the complete harmonic spectrum with magnitudes and phase
short interruption are loss of information and malfunction of angles of each individual harmonic component. THD is
data processing equipment, tripping of protection devices represented as the square-root of sum of the squares of each
and stoppage of sensitive equipment. individual harmonic component. Voltage THD is given by

∑∞
=   (1)

Where V is the rms magnitude of fundamental component

V is the rms magnitude of fundamental component n,
Where n=2,…….,∞
Fig. 2. Very Short Interruption
III. Custom Power Devices
b. Long Interruption
Long interruptions are defined as loss of utility i. Active Voltage Conditioner
power lasting more than 2 minutes due to major local The Active Voltage Conditioner (AVC) comprises
area or regional electrical incidents. These are caused of series boost transformer driven by precisely controlled
by equipment failure in the power system network, rectifier/inverter set to compensate the grid voltage
storms and objects striking lines or poles, power system variations. Injection/boost transformer (passive component
faults and control malfunctioning causes long of AVC) operates in its linear region by imposing additional
interruptions. Long interruptions result in stoppage of or subtractive voltage wave on the grid waveform and
all equipment. accordingly keeping the output voltage stabilized. The AVC
power is limited to the product of voltage correction range
(±10% typical) and nominal load current.

913
 IEEE International Conference on Power, Control, Signals and Instrumentation Engineering (ICPCSI-2017)

VL(t) = Load voltage

Vinj(t) = Injection voltage at transformer

ii. Dynamic Voltage Restorer

The DVR[5] is a powerful solid-state power
electronic-based compensator that is commonly used for
voltage sags mitigation at the point of connection. In this
application the coupling transformer is connected in series
with the ac system. The VSC generates a three phase ac
output voltage which is controllable in phase and
magnitude. These voltages are injected into the ac
distribution system in order to maintain the load voltage at
the desired voltage reference. The presence of DC energy
Fig. 5. Block Diagram of AVC
storage unit in DVR is to provide the required power for
correcting voltage disturbances. The main Components in
This topology allows AVC to provide long-duration
compensation without using any DC-link, significantly DVR[6] are Voltage Source Inverter, Injecting Transformer,
reducing the device cost. From the figure, the terminal Filter Circuit, Energy Storage Unit, Bypass Switches and
voltage of the converter, VC(t), can be defined as[4] Control Circuits.

. ( )
( )= (2)

Where,

= + (3)

t1 and t2 are the sampling period time intervals between 0 to

Ts, and VPCC(t) is the measured voltage at the point of
common coupling (PCC). To compensate voltage sags and
swells, the nominal load voltage, VL(t) can be expressed as

( )= ( )+ ( ) (4) Fig.7. Single-line diagram of DVR

Where, iii. Distribution static synchronous compensator

( )
DSTATCOM is a shunt connected solid state
( )= (5) device which is installed at Distribution level to control the
load side disturbances. The main components of
N is the turn ratio of the injection transformer. DSTATCOM[6,7] are Voltage Source Converter, Energy
Storage Device, L-C Passive Filter which is used To
eliminate the harmonics, Coupling Transformer, Control
Block.

Fig.6. Single-line diagram of AVC

Where
PCC = Point of common coupling
Fig.8. Schematic Representation of the DSTATCOM
VS(t) = Source voltage

914
 IEEE International Conference on Power, Control, Signals and Instrumentation Engineering (ICPCSI-2017)

The VSC[8,9] converts the dc voltage across the

storage device into a set of three-phase ac output voltages.
These voltages are in phase and coupled with the ac system
through the reactance of the coupling transformer. Suitable
adjustment of the phase and magnitude of the D-STATCOM
output voltages allows effective control of active and
reactive power exchanges between the D-STATCOM and
the ac system. Such configuration allows the device to
absorb or generate controllable active and reactive power.
DC source is connected in parallel with the DC capacitor. It Fig.11. Comparison to measured rms voltage at bus 11 for voltage sags
carries the input ripple current of the converter and it is the with depth of 0.6 and voltage interruption without CPD and AVC
main reactive energy storage element. This DC capacitor
could be charged by a battery source or could be recharged
by the converter itself.

Fig.12. Comparison to measured rms voltage at bus 11 for voltage sags

with depth of 0.6 and voltage interruption without CPD, AVC and DVR

Fig.9. Single-line diagram of DSTATCOM

IV. SIMULATION RESULTS

To investigate the performance of CPDs on distribution
systems under different PQ disturbances, a modified 16-bus
test system is considered as shown in Fig. 10 [2]. Each CPD
is individually planned to be placed at bus 11 to compensate
PQ issues seen by loads L6 and L7. To study the
performance of CPDs, a voltage sag with depths of 0.6 p.u. Fig.13. Comparison to measured rms voltage at bus 11 for voltage sags
with depth of 0.6 and voltage interruption without CPD, AVC, DVR and
followed by a voltage interruption are created in the test DSTATCOM
system.
In the above Fig. 11 clearly shows that voltage sag
is decreased at the time interval of 0.5 to 1.5 by placing
AVC in the system. Here in Fig.12 shows about 95% of
voltage sag is mitigated by placing DVR. In Fig. 13 shows
that parallel device cannot accurately mitigate voltage sag
when the depth of sag increases. This restriction occurs
given the limitation of the DC-link storage in D-STATCOM
(capacitor rapid discharges). In addition, parallel device is
advised to be disconnected from the protection system to
prevent them from feeding upstream faults. In case of series
compensators, the results show that these devices have
better performance for PQ improvements. DVR is able to
recover accurately all the voltage sags and voltage
interruptions that occurred. However, limited DC-link
storage may limit DVR as to cost of device and duration of
voltage sag compensation, although not as much as D-
STATCOM. To illustrate the limitations of the devices
Fig.10. Single-line diagram of the 16-bus test system

915
 IEEE International Conference on Power, Control, Signals and Instrumentation Engineering (ICPCSI-2017)

better, the injected voltages and currents are shown in Figs. loads can improve the voltage and current THD of the entire
14,15 and 16. system.

TABLE I. MEASURED VOLTAGE AND CURRENT THD AT BUS 11

Device % %
WITHOUT CPD 15.79 26.04
AVC 3.98 4.6
DVR 4.1 4.67
Fig.14. AVC injected voltages during a 0.6 voltage sag and voltage
interruption DSTATCOM 4.03 2.53

V. CONCLUSIONS
This paper presents a review on the performance of
CPDs under different types of PQ disturbances. The CPDs
including AVC, DVR, and D-STATCOM are modeled on a
16-bus test system with loads using Matlab/Simulink
software, and a voltage interruption and a voltage sag with a
depth of 0.6 p.u are created to test the performance of each
Fig.15. DVR injected voltages during a 0.6 voltage sag and voltage
interruption device. The simulation results showed that the performance
and effectiveness of each device depends on the device’s
structure and characteristic during the duration of PQ
disturbances.

REFERENCES

[1] Prafull A. Desale, Vishvadeep J. Dhawale, Ranjeet M. Bandgar

“Brief Review Paper on the Custom Power Devices for Power
Quality Improvement,” ISSN 0974-2174 Volume 7, Number 7
(2014).
Fig.16. DSTATCOM injected currents during a 0.6 voltage sag and [2] M. Farhoodnea, A. Mohamed, H. Shareef, and H. Zayandehroodi,
voltage interruption "Power quality impact of grid-connected photovoltaic generation
system in distribution networks," in IEEE Student Conference on
Research and Development (SCOReD), , 2012, pp. 1-6.
Fig. 14 & 15 shows that DVR has the superior [3] Sankaran, C., “Power Quality”, CRC Press LLC, 2002.
performance for recovering deep voltage sags and voltage [4] M. Farhoodnea, A. Mohamed, H. Shareef, and H. Zayandehroodi,
interruption due to the DC-link storage element. However, "An Enhanced Premium Power Park Configuration Using Active
given the capacity limitation of the DC source, DVR may be Power and Voltage Conditioning Devices," Control Engineering
Practice, vol. 21, pp. 1542-1552, 2013.
limited during long voltage interruption. Note that the [5] B.Vairamohan, W. Komatsu, M. Galassi, T. C. Monteiro, M. A. de
performance of AVC can be improved by installing an Oliveira, S. U. Ahn, et al., "Technology assessment for power quality
external battery or capacitor bank to allow the AVC to mitigation devices–Micro-DVR case study," Electric Power Systems
compensate deep voltage sags and voltage interruptions. Research, vol. 81, pp. 1215-1226, 2011.
[6] Kumar, S. V. Ravi; Nagaraju, S. Siva, “Simulation of D-Statcom and
However, the improvement may significantly increase the DVR in Power Systems”, ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied
device cost. From Fig. 16 results show that D-STATCOM Sciences, Vol. 2, no. 3, 2007.
is suitable for compensating slight voltage sag with short [7] Aref Jalili Irani and Asgar Poorghasemi Khiyavi, “A New apparoach
duration. to improve power quality by reducing voltage using D-STATCOM,”
ICEEE2016.
Also to study the performance of CPDs in [8] Kumar, S. V. Ravi; Nagaraju, S. Siva, “Simulation of D-Statcom and
mitigating voltage and current distortion, the voltage and DVR in Power Systems”, ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied
current total harmonic distortion (THD) at bus 11 is Sciences, Vol. 2, no. 3, 2007.
measured and shown in Table 1. The table clearly shows [9] Sun, J.; Czarkowski, D.; Zabar, Z., “Voltage Flicker Mitigation Using
PWM-Based Distribution STATCOM”, Conference on Power
that all CPDs can significantly mitigate both voltage and Engineering, Vol. 1, pp. 616-621, 2002.
harmonic distortions but the performance of parallel device [10] El Flinn, D. G.; Gilker, C.; Mendis S. R., “Methods for Identifying
is much better especially in current harmonic distortion. In Potential Power Quality Problem”, Conference on Rural Electric
addition, the ability of parallel CPDs in injecting Power, February 3, 1991.
[11] Mofty, A.; Youssef, K., “Industrial Power Quality Problems”,
compensation current to both upstream and downstream Conference on Electrical Distribution, Vol. 2, pp. 18-21, June 2001.

916
 IEEE International Conference on Power, Control, Signals and Instrumentation Engineering (ICPCSI-2017)

[12] Mohan Mathur, R.; Varma, Rajiv K., “Thyristor- Based FACTS
Controllers for Electrical Transmission Systems”, John Wiley &
Sons, Inc., Publication, IEEE Press, ISBN 0-471-20643-1, 2002

917