Development of railway static power conditioner used at substation for Shinkansen

High-speed AC electric railways, such as Shinkansen, require large single-phase AC electric power. So, if the short circuit capacity of the power system is not large enough, therefore, railway operation causes large voltage unbalance at the three-phase side. In this paper, a railway static power conditioner (RPC), a new system for reducing voltage unbalance and fluctuation, is described. To reduce voltage unbalance and fluctuation, the RPC balances effective power of different phase and compensates reactive power and harmonics. It enables operation of high-speed AC electrified railways even if the short circuit capacity of the power system is rather small.