Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Inventive Systems and Control (ICISC 2018)

IEEE Xplore Compliant - Part Number:CFP18J06-ART, ISBN:978-1-5386-0807-4; DVD Part Number:CFP18J06DVD, ISBN:978-1-5386-0806-7

Power Quality Improvement by Using

Modular Multilevel Cascade Converter based
STATCOM
Yogita R. Ashtekar
Assistant professor, Anuja A. Mude Sneha A. Khubalkar
Department of Electrical Assistant professor, Assistant professor,
Engineering, DMIETR, Sawangi, Department of Electrical Department of Electrical
Wardha, India Engineering, DMIETR, Sawangi, Engineering, DMIETR, Sawangi,
E-mail: Wardha, India Wardha, India
snehalashtekar87@gmail.com E-mail: anujamude@gmail.com E-mail: akhsneha@gmail.com

Abstract— Quantity of the output power delivered from the Series Compensator- SSSC and Unified Power Flow
utilities has become major concern of the modern industries for Controller (UPFC). STATCOM is a popular FACTS
the last decade. The power quality associated problems are
voltage sag, flicker , voltage imbalance, interruption and controller to support the voltage, improve the transmission
harmonics problems which results in the malfunctutioning of capability, enhance the voltage stability and increase the
equipment’s in the industries by affecting the microprocessor transient stability by injecting/absorbing the reactive power
based loads, sensitive electric components which are highly
to/from the power system at the point of common coupling.
sensitive to voltage level fluctuation. The power consumed by the
heavy load creates unsymmetrical currents which results in Modular Multilevel converter (MMC) based STATCOM is an
reduced power quality in the electrical grid. The stimulating extended topology of STATCOM with enhanced power
functions of Flexible AC Transmission system (FACTS) estimate quality as it reduces the harmonic contamination injected by
the critical clearing time, voltage regulation, steady state power
flow and oscillation damping control. The main objective of this
the STATCOM into the power system.
paper is the application of modular multilevel cascade (MMC)
converter based Static synchronous Compensator (STATCOM) The complete simulation of the Modular Multilevel Converter
for reactive-power control and improved power quality. The based STATCOM within a power system is performed in the
complete simulation of this system is performed in the MATLAB MATLAB software and the PI control is used for the
software and the PI control is used for the controlling. controlling. The control circuit uses PWM technique for
controlling action. The MMCCs will be classified into four
Keywords— Flexible AC Transmission system (FACTS), Static types such as single-star bridge cells (SSBCs), single-delta
synchronous Compensator (STATCOM), modular multilevel
bridge cells (SDBCs),double-star chopper cells (DSCCs) and
cascade (MMC), insulated-gate bipolar transistors (IGBT)
double-star bridge cells (DSBCs).
I. INTRODUCTION
The term bridge cell is a single-phase full bridge converter, and
The power quality problems in power system happens in
chopper cell consisting of a dc capacitor and two IGBT. The
millisecond and because of time limitation it requires fast
Double - star bridge cells (DSBCs)are suitable for a Static
operating custom devices. FACTS technology is the
synchronous Compensator (STATCOM) for voltage regulation
application of a variety of new power electronic controllers for
problem of eliminating harmonics. The output waveform of
both active and reactive power compensation. The stimulating
multilevel converter is in a stepped wave form resulting in
functions of FACTS estimate the critical clearing time, voltage
reduced harmonics compared to square wave converter [12].
regulation, steady state power flow and oscillation damping
control. The insertion of such controllers in power system
enables an approach to plan a better reactive power II. POWER QUALITY ISSUES / PROBLEMS
management scheme which improves voltage profile, utilizes The gradual change in power system leads to shortage of
the existing transmission system assets, increases transmission reactive power leading to power instability. With increased
system reliability, amplifies transient grid stability and reduces power flow, there is corresponding decrease in voltage at the
loop flow. Highly adaptable, efficient FACTS controllers exist bus which results in shortage of reactive power. Power Quality
that are rapidly emerging in power systems and includes Static issues are mainly Voltage sag, Voltage swell, Micro
Synchronous Compensator - STATCOM, Static Synchronous interruptions, Transients and Harmonics. The consequences of

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 Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Inventive Systems and Control (ICISC 2018)
IEEE Xplore Compliant - Part Number:CFP18J06-ART, ISBN:978-1-5386-0807-4; DVD Part Number:CFP18J06DVD, ISBN:978-1-5386-0806-7

these issues are flickering lights, equipment shutoff, loss of A. Capacitor Voltage Balancing
data and damaged to equipments.So in this paper MMC In the MMC, modules are constantly inserted into and
Converter based STATCOM is tested for these issues to bypassed out of the system. In order to keep the capacitor
prevent the system, reaching this state is to augment reactive voltages as evenly distributed as possible, not any module
power support. should be operated at any given time. The modules inserted or
bypassed have to be selected. Any failure to the module
III. STATIC SYNCHRONOUS COMPENSATOR (STATCOM) insertion results in the distortion of the output voltage which
STATCOM is made up of a coupling transformer, a VSC and may cause equipment damage. This selection is based on the
a dc energy storage device. STATCOM is capable of direction of the current in the arm.
exchanging reactive power with the transmission line because
of its small energy storage device i.e. small dc capacitor, if B. Phase-Shifted Sinusoidal Pulse-Width Modulation (PS-
this dc capacitor is replaced with dc storage battery or other dc SPWM)
voltage source, the controller can exchange real and reactive As in regular SPWM, the signal to be modulated is compared
power with the transmission system, extending its region of to a high frequency triangular waveform. To take advantage of
operation from two to four quadrants. A functional model of a the higher number of levels, PS-SPWM uses as many different
STATCOM is shown in Fig.1. phase-shifted triangular waveforms as there are converter
levels. The waveforms are phase-shifted so that the switching
instants of the different modules are offset in time, thus
reducing the harmonics in the output signal, In the example,
the frequency of the triangular waveform is 360Hz, only 6
times that of the modulating signal. It can be seen in the graph
showing the harmonic contents of the modulating signal
however, that the apparent switching frequency is much
higher, in this case, the lower harmonics are centered around
1800Hz, 5 times higher than the individual modules switching
frequency as there are 5 modules per arm. This illustrates a
Fig.1 Basic Operation of STATCOM
major advantage of the MMC, which is a substantial reduction
If the amplitudes of the ac system and converter output in losses as each module switches at only a fraction of the
voltages are equal, there will be no ac current flow in/out of overall equivalent switching frequency. This advantage
the converter and hence there will be no reactive power becomes more attractive as the number of modules increases,
generation/absorption the ac current magnitude can be either producing a higher apparent output frequency, or
calculated using the following equation[13]. lowering the switching frequency of individual modules. From
the figure, the underlying sinusoidal waveform can easily be
−V noticed. Compared to the SPWM technique it is clear that this
=
signal contains much smaller harmonics, as confirmed by the
harmonic content. The difference can be clearly seen with
Assuming that the ac current flows from the converter to the
only 5 levels. This becomes more visible as the number of
ac system. The corresponding reactive power exchanged can
modules increases, reducing, and potentially removing
be expressed as follows.
altogether, the requirements for filters.
−V
= C. Principle Of Operation Of MMC
Fig.2 and 3 shows the typical structure of a MMC and the
The real power exchange between the voltage-sourced configuration of a Sub-Module (SM) respectively.
converter and the ac system can be calculated as follows.

IV. MODULAR MULTILEVEL CONVERTER (MMC)

Load is connected to PCC. STATCOM can be connected
on either side i.e. towards load side or Source side. The MMC
STATCOM topology consists of different blocks.
Fig:-2 Three-phase Modular Multi-level Converter

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 Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Inventive Systems and Control (ICISC 2018)
IEEE Xplore Compliant - Part Number:CFP18J06-ART, ISBN:978-1-5386-0807-4; DVD Part Number:CFP18J06DVD, ISBN:978-1-5386-0806-7

In MMC the switching sequence is controlled so that at each

From the above Fig.2 the output voltage UO is given by, instant only N SMs are in the on-state. Selection algorithm of
inserted or bypassed SMs during each sampling period of the
UO = UC if T1 is ON and T2 is OFF
control system results in equal voltage sharing among the
UO = 0 if T1 is OFF and T2 is ON capacitor of each arm can be achieved by a typical voltage
Where UC is the instantaneous capacitor voltage. waveform of a multi-level converter is shown in Fig.6.

Fig.3 shows If T1 and T2 both are ON or OFF at the same

instant that configuration should not be considered because it
determines a short circuit across the capacitor and produces
different output voltages depending on the current direction
respectively. The current flows in both useful states. The
number of steps of the output voltage in MMC is related to
the number of series connected SMs.

Fig:-6 Voltage waveform of a Multi-Level Converter

V. SIMULATION OF MODULAR MULTILEVEL CASCADE

CONVERTER BASED STATCOM
The system is connected with 66 kV Source voltage, the
ratings of STATCOM is mentioned in Table -I of parameters.
We used Modular multilevel converter to the STATCOM
which is connected parallel to the transmission line. MMC
Fig:-3 Schematic of one phase of Three-Level Converter STATCOM supplies reactive power to transmission line.
Reactive power is supplied with the help of VSC which is
The zero state can be obtained through two possible switch consists of Modular Multilevel Converter circuit with
configurations. Two SMs in the middle of a leg 2 and 3 are IGBT’s. System is studied under three different conditions.
bypassed in first one and in second one is the end SMs of a leg 1) System under Steady state
1 and 4 are bypassed. In order to get the positive output, 2) System Under Sag condition
+UD/2, the two upper SMs 1 and 2 are bypassed. Similarly, 3) System Under Fault condition
for - UD/2, the two lower SMs 3 and 4 are bypassed. Both the
zero states must be used alternatively in order to keep the
capacitor voltages balanced. Fig.4 shows the voltage
waveform generated by the three level converters.

Fig.4 Voltage waveform of a Three-Level Converter

The principle of operation can be extended to any multi-level

configuration as the one represented in Fig.5

Fig.7 Simulation of Modular Multilevel Cascade converter Based STATCOM

Fig.5 Schematic of one phase of Multi-Level Converter

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 Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Inventive Systems and Control (ICISC 2018)
IEEE Xplore Compliant - Part Number:CFP18J06-ART, ISBN:978-1-5386-0807-4; DVD Part Number:CFP18J06DVD, ISBN:978-1-5386-0806-7

In steady state, the STATCOM performance is studied. All the case bus voltage and 1 pu, more is the source voltage
voltages are well balanced and regulated. The good magnitude and of STATCOM and vice- versa.
waveforms of voltage and STATCOM current at the PCC bus
show that passive filter becomes unnecessary.

Table – I
Sr. System System Specifiaction
No. Parameter
1 IGBT Internal resistance:-1e-3Ω
Snubber resistance -1e5Ω
Fig.10 Source Voltage in 3 Phase Fault condition with STATCOM
2 Line 15.9 mhenry
Inductance x 10
4
ISa
1
3 Line 0.5929 Ω
Resistance 0.5

4 Base Voltage 66 kV

Current (Amp)
5 For RL Load Active Power:- 47.5 MW 0

Inductive reactive power:- -0.5

0.15MW
6 For RL1 Load Active Power:- 47.5 MW -1
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7
Inductive reactive power:- Time
Fig.11 Source Current in Fault condition with STATCOM
0.15MW
7 SM Capacitor 3 microfarad Fig.12 and 13 shows Source voltage for different types of
VI. RESULTS faults such as LL Faults, LLG faults has been analyze by
magnitude of voltage.
Fig.8 & 9 shows the magnitude of source voltage and current
without STATCOM under fault condition in which magnitude
of voltage is reduced from 63.27 kV to 31.63 kV for sag
condition from duration 0.2 sec and then decrease to 0 volt
for transient fault for (0.3-0.4) sec transition period & Current
magnitude rises from 510A to 5027A for transient fault for
(0.3-0.4) sec transition period respectively.

Fig.12 Source Voltage in LL Fault condition with STATCOM

Fig.8
Source Voltage in 3 Phase Fault condition without STATCOM Fig.13 Source Voltage in LLG Fault condition with STATCOM

STATCOM inject reactive power of 82 MVAR in system to Fig.14 and 15 shows voltage and current at PCC during fault
restore the voltage to normal condition. without and with STATCOM for different types of fault such
as three phase and LLG fault.
ISa
8000

6000
4
x 10 V_PCC
6
4000

4
Current(Amp)

2000
Voltage(Volt)

0 0

-2
-2000

-4
-4000
-6
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7
-6000
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5
Time

Fig.9 Source Current in Fault condition without STATCOM 0.5

Current (Amp)

Fig.10 and 11 shows the magnitude of source voltage and 0

current with STATCOM under fault condition. It is observed

-0.5

-1

that source voltage Magnitude of STATCOM is greater than

0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7
Time

unity for raising the bus voltage to 1 pu and less then unity for Fig.14 Voltage and Current at PCC during three phase Fault without

lowering it to 1 pu. Hence more the difference between base STATCOM

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 Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Inventive Systems and Control (ICISC 2018)
IEEE Xplore Compliant - Part Number:CFP18J06-ART, ISBN:978-1-5386-0807-4; DVD Part Number:CFP18J06DVD, ISBN:978-1-5386-0806-7

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Fig.17 Load Active Power & Reactive Power under Fault Condition with
STATCOM

VII. CONCLUSION
In this paper a full-bridge MMC converter based STATCOM
model is implemented and stimulated with PSPWM scheme.
In this system, the SM capacitor voltages are balanced by two
control loops, one equalizes the capacitor energy among three
phases, and the other balances the capacitor voltage within
each arm. This scheme has fast response and minimum impact
on the STATCOM voltage and current harmonics. The MMC
STATCOM and its controller are validated in a test system for
scenarios, i.e. the steady state, voltage sag, 3-phase-ground ac
fault and the obtained results shows the proposed control
scheme is effective and robust. The STATCOM has fast
response to voltage sag, and fast recovery after ac or dc faults,
even without protection circuits.

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