An analysis and improvement of selected features of power quality of grid-tied alternative energy systems

Abstract

Electrical energy can be easily used and converted to other forms of energy for various applications. Technological advancement increases the dependency on electricity to a great extent. Various internal and external factors are responsible for the bad quality of power in power systems. The performance of the system is greatly affected by the presence of harmonics, as well as voltage and frequency variations, which leads to the malfunctioning of the device and decline of power quality and supply at load side. The reactive power compensation is carried out for better power quality. The literature survey is done to find the best and efficient scheme for reactive power compensation and mitigation of various power quality problems. The devices which are used to measure various power quality factors are discussed. Various mitigating schemes are surveyed in order to compensate reactive power and to improve the power quality at the distribution end. The integration of the most widely used renewable energy, wind energy in the distribution system creates technical issues like stability of the grid, harmonic distortion, voltage regulation, active and reactive power compensation etc. which are restricted to IEC and IEEE standards. One of the topics this thesis addresses is regulation in the reactive power generated along with voltage regulation by using an effective power electronics device known as a STATCOM. The main power quality factors like overvoltage and voltage flickers are mitigated by establishing STATCOMs in small wind farms. The wind farms are equipped with three wind turbines. These three wind turbines found in the wind farm can be operated together or one after another with an introduced delay. A glitch in even a little piece of a power grid can result in loss of efficiency, income and at times even life. In this manner, it is basic to outline a system which can distinguish the faults of the power system and take a faster response to recover it back to required reactive power. Two devices STATCOM and D-STATCOM are used for this purpose in this thesis. The D-STATCOM circuit and operating principle are also discussed in thesis. Different topologies of D-STATCOM discussed with their benefits and shortcomings. The voltage, current and hybrid technologies of D-STATCOM are also discussed.