Development of a Capacitor-less D-STATCOM for Power Quality Improvement in Low Voltage Network

Ensuring high power quality (PQ) is becoming an increasingly important task as the number of power quality sensitive loads increases. Mitigating power quality problems and providing the required compensation locally within the distribution network (near the source of the problem) reduces the total system losses and other undesirable effects caused with the reactive current flow in the electrical network. In this paper, a three-phase capacitorless matrix converter (MC) has been employed as a distribution-system static compensator (D-STATCOM) to provide reactive power compensation in the low voltage distribution network. To achieve a long service life, energy is stored in chokes instead of capacitors. The inductive-loaded D-STATCOM is controlled using model predictive control (MPC) to supply reactive power to the distribution network. To verify the proposed approach, experimental studies were performed and the results obtained from 7. 5KVA test prototype showed the effectiveness of the proposed technology in reactive power compensation.