Control of A Cascade STATCOM With Star Configuration Under Unbalanced Conditions

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 24, NO.
1, JANUARY 2009 45
Control of a Cascade STATCOM With Star
Conguration Under Unbalanced Conditions
Qiang Song and Wenhua Liu, Member, IEEE
AbstractA control scheme for star-connected cascade static
synchronous compensators (STATCOMs) operating under unbal-
anced conditions is proposed. The STATCOM is assumed to be
connected to an equivalent three-phase star-connected power sup-
ply. By selecting the line-to-neutral voltages of the equivalent power
supply, zero average active power ineachphase canbe obtainedun-
der unbalanced compensation currents or unbalanced supply volt-
ages. Furthermore, to implement a separate control for the three-
phase dc-link voltages, the average active power in each phase can
also be adjusted to a target value determined by the dc-link volt-
age control loop. Then, by forcing the converter neutral voltage
to be equal to the counterpart of the equivalent power supply, the
STATCOM can be decoupled into three single-phase systems and
the line-to-neutral voltage of the equivalent power supply can be
used as the input voltage to the corresponding phase leg. Accord-
ingly, reference current tracking and dc-link voltage maintaining
can be simultaneously achieved under unbalanced conditions. The
valid operating range of the star-connected cascade STATCOMun-
der unbalanced conditions is also analyzed. The proposed control
scheme has been tested using the power systems computer-aided
design/electromagnetic transient in dc system (EMTDC) simula-
tion results and the experimental results based on a 30-kVAr cas-
cade STATCOM laboratory prototype are proposed.
Index TermsCascade multilevel converter, static synchronous
compensator (STATCOM), unbalance operation.
I. INTRODUCTION
T
HE STATIC synchronous compensators (STATCOM) us-
ing voltage source converters are nding increased utiliza-
tion in transmission grids to stabilize the power system, increase
the maximum active power ow, and regulate the line voltages,
as well as in distribution grids to compensate the unbalanced
loads, regulate the voltage of distribution lines, and reduce volt-
age icker. In recent years, applying the cascaded H-bridge
converter to the STATCOM has been receiving considerable
attention [1][9]. Compared with diode-clamped converters or
ying capacitor converters, the cascade multilevel converter can
implement a high number of levels more easily. Consequently,
the cascade STATCOM can be directly connected to the grid
without the bulky step-up transformer, resulting in cost and
weight reduction [6]. The unwelcome effects caused by the line
frequency converter transformer, such as saturation and dc mag-
netization, can also be eliminated. In China, the transformerless
Manuscript received October 5, 2007; revised December 24, 2007. Current
version published February 6, 2009. This work was supported by the National
Basic Research (973) Program of China under Grant 2004CB217907. Recom-
mended for publication by Associate Editor H. Mouton.
The authors are with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua
University, Beijing 100084, China (e-mail: liuwenh@tsinghua.edu.cn).
Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TPEL.2008.2009172
cascade STATCOMis being applied to the 10- and 35-kVutility
and industrial systems.
Each phase leg of the cascade converter consists of a num-
ber of series-connected H-bridge converter cells, and the three
phase legs can be connected either in delta structure or in star
structure. Each of these two structures has its own advantages
and limitations. When employing a star-connected structure, the
converter phase leg is rated at the line-to-neutral voltage of the
connected power system. Consequently, when compared with
the case using delta structure, either the switching devices can be
rated at lower block voltage rating, or the number of the series-
connected H-bridge cells can be reduced. Therefore, from the
cost point of view, the star-connected structure is more prefer-
able for the applications with higher rated voltage and lower
rated current.
The unbalanced operation is a problem that the STATCOM
must deal with, either in transmission systems or in distribution
systems. Unequal loading on each phase, which causes cur-
rent imbalance of the converter, is one of the major causes of
unbalanced operation. The voltage imbalance that arises from
asymmetry faults of power system or unbalanced loads is an-
other major cause. One of the research focuses of the STATCOM
operation under unbalanced conditions is the active compensa-
tion of unbalanced loads or the rebalance of unbalanced sys-
tem voltages [10][14]. Another research focus is the effects
of unbalanced conditions on the converter operation [15][19].
For the converters with a common dc-link capacitor, such as
conventional two-level converters or three-level neutral-point-
clamped converters, a second harmonic component arises on
the converters dc side under unbalanced conditions, and results
in a third harmonic current component on the ac side. Under
unbalanced supply voltages, the ow of the negative-sequence
currents on the ac side may cause STATCOM ofine due to
overcurrent [16]. However, unlike the converter with a common
dc-link, the dc-link capacitors of the H-bridges converters are
split and isolated. There are few data available on the operation
and control of the cascade converters under unbalanced con-
ditions. For load compensation applications, a power balance
approach for cascade STATCOMs and its corresponding simu-
lation results were presented in [20], but the asymmetry of the
power supply voltages and the dc-link voltage control were not
taken into consideration.
When operating under unbalanced conditions, for a star-
connected cascade STATCOM with a oating neutral connec-
tion, the input voltage to each phase leg is not simply the line-
to-neutral voltage of the power system. This makes it difcult
for the current control loop to produce the reference output volt-
age of each phase leg for good tracking reference current. As
0885-8993/$25.00 2009 IEEE
Authorized licensed use limited to: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY WARANGAL. Downloaded on October 22, 2009 at 05:34 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
46 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 24, NO. 1, JANUARY 2009
a result, overcurrent may occur during unbalanced operation
and cause a STACOM failure. In addition, since the dc-link
capacitors of the H-bridges converters are split and isolated,
the active power cannot be exchanged between the phase legs.
Therefore, in order to maintain the dc-link voltages, the average
active power owing into or out of per phase leg should be zero
(without consideration of the losses). It is a challenge for the
current control loop to nd the optimal reference voltages for
tracking reference current and maintaining zero average power
simultaneously under unbalanced conditions.
For a real installation, each phase leg should also absorb a
small amount of active power to compensate the power losses.
Usually, PI loops are used to generate the reference active current
to maintain the dc-link voltages and suppress transient overvolt-
age. For a star-connected cascade converter, the active currents
of the three phase legs should be controlled separately, since
the dc-link capacitors are split. However, only two of the three
phase currents can be independently controlled, since the sum
of the three phase currents must be zero. The independent and
separate control of the three dc-link voltages is thereby also a
challenge to the unbalanced operation of a star-connected cas-
cade STATCOM.
This paper presents a control scheme for star-connected cas-
cade STATCOMs operating under unbalanced conditions. Us-
ing the proposed control algorithm, the average active power
balance control, the dc-link voltage control, and the reference
current tracking control can be simultaneously implemented for
both unbalanced load conditions and unbalanced voltages con-
ditions. The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section II
presents how an equivalent three-phase star-connected power
supply is constructed to obtain zero active power in each phase.
Furthermore, to implement a separate control of the three dc-
link voltages, the algorithm is improved to adjust the average
active power in each phase to a target value determined by
the dc-voltage controller. Then, the STATCOM is decoupled
into three single-phase systems by forcing the converter neutral
voltage to be equal to the counterpart of the equivalent power
supply. Therefore, reference current tracking and zero active
power maintaining can be achieved simultaneously under un-
balanced conditions. In Section III, the valid operating range of
the star-connected cascade STATCOMunder unbalanced condi-
tions is analyzed. To validate the proposed control scheme, the
simulation results using power systems computer-aided design
(PSCAD)/electromagnetic transient in dc system (EMTDC) are
presented in Section IV and the experimental results based
on a 30-kVAr cascade STATCOM laboratory prototype are
presented in Section V. Finally, the conclusions are given in
Section VI.
II. CONTROL ALGORITHM
A. Equivalent Power Supply
A star-connected cascade STATCOM system is depicted in
Fig. 1. Three-phase three-wire systems are considered in this
paper. The neutral of the converter is oating. The neutrals of
the power transformers and loads are not grounded if they are
star-connected. The Thevein inductance of the power system is
Fig. 1. Circuit conguration and shunt connection of the STATCOM to the
grid.
L
S
. The STATCOMinterface inductance is Land the power loss
of the STATCOM is represented using an equivalent resistance
R. When working on transmission applications, the STATCOM
generates reactive current to regulate the grid voltages. When
working as a distribution STATCOM, the STATCOM is used to
compensate the reactive current and unbalance current arising
from the load side.
The methods for determining the reference currents for distri-
bution applications and transmission applications are illustrated
in Appendix A. In the following analysis, we assume that the
reference currents for the three-phase legs have been obtained
in phasor forms as follows:
I
RA
= I
ram
ira
, I
RB
= I
rbm
irb
, I
RC
= I
rcm
irc
.
(1)
Usually, in the STATCOM controller, a current control loop
is used to force the converter current to track the reference.
However, since the neutral of the star-connected converter is
oating, the network line-to-neutral voltages cannot be directly
used as the input source voltage for the current controller, result-
ing in the difculty in good tracking of the reference. Besides
the undetermined input source voltage, as mentioned in the in-
troduction, another difculty is that the converter voltages given
by the current control loop should also meet the constraint of
zero average active power in each phase leg.
To solve this problem, as depicted in Fig. 2, the STATCOM
is assumed to be connected with an equivalent star-connected
power supply. When selecting the line-to-neutral voltages of the
equivalent power supply, the line-to-line voltages at the connec-
tion point should remain unchanged. To satisfy this constraint,
SONG AND LIU: CONTROL OF A CASCADE STATCOM WITH STAR CONFIGURATION UNDER UNBALANCED CONDITIONS 47
Fig. 2. Equivalent connection of the STATCOM to the equivalent power
supply.
there are various possible sets of three-phase line-to-neutral
voltages, and they can be expressed in phasor form as follows:
_
_
U
sa
U
sb
U
sc
_
_ =
_
_
U
sam
sa
U
sbm
sb
U
scm
sc
_
_ =
_
_
U
sa1
U
sb1
U
sc1
_
_ +
_
_
U
0
U
0
U
0
_
_ (2)
where the voltages [U
sa1
, U
sb1,
U
sc1
]
T
represent a special set of
network line-to-neutral voltage phasors without zero-sequence
component, and it can be calculated using the measured
line-to-line voltages at the connection point
_
_
U
sa1
U
sb1
U
sc1
_
_ =
_
_
U
sa1
sa1
U
sb1
sb1
U
sc1
sc1
_
_ =
1
3
_
_
U
sab
U
sca
U
sbc
U
sab
U
sca
U
sbc
_
_. (3)
Obviously, U
0
is the zero-sequence component and can be
expressed by
U
0
= U
0m
0
=
1
3
(U
sa
+ U
sb
+ U
sc
). (4)
Consequently, the task of determining the line-to-neutral volt-
ages [U
sa
, U
sb,
U
sc
]
T
is simply that of nding an appropriate
zero-sequence voltage U
0
.
It is also assumed that the reference currents have been well-
tracked. Therefore, the active power generated by the line-to-
neutral voltage and the reference current in each phase of the
equivalent power supply should be zero, aimed at meeting the
constraint of zero average active power in each converter leg.
Fig. 3. Phasor diagram showing how to nd out zero-sequence voltage U
0
.
(a) Phase A. (b) Phase B.
The average active power in each phase can be expressed by
_
_
1
2
U
0m
I
ram
cos(
0
ira
)+
1
2
U
sa1m
I
ram
cos(
sa1
ira
) =0
1
2
U
0m
I
rbm
cos(
0
irb
)+
1
2
U
sb1m
I
rbm
cos(
sb1
irb
) =0
1
2
U
0m
I
rcm
cos(
0
irc
)+
1
2
U
sc1m
I
rcm
cos(
sc1
irc
) =0.
(5)
As illustrated using the phasor diagram shown in Fig. 3(a),
the voltage phasor U
sa1
can be resolved into components with
respect to the coordinate aligned with the current phasor I
ra
.
Obviously, only the direct component of the voltage phasor
contributes to the generation of active power. Thus, the direct
component of U
sa1
and the direct component of U
0
must be
cancelled by each other to obtain zero average active power.
Note that the amplitude of the direct component of U
sa1
is
U
sa1m
cos
a
. Therefore, as illustrated in Fig. 3(a), to obtain zero
average active power in phase A, the necessary and sufcient
condition is that the voltage phasor U
0
is located on the line
A
0
. In the same way, as illustrated in Fig. 3(b), the necessary
and sufcient condition for obtaining zero average active power
in phase B is that the phasor U
0
is located on the line B
0
.
Consequently, to guarantee zero average active power in both
phases A and B, the resultant phasor U
0
must be located at
the intersection of these two lines. Note that the summed active
power of the three phases is zero is guaranteed when determining
the reference currents. Also note that the zero-sequence voltage
phasor can change neither the three-phase summed active power
nor the summed reactive power. Therefore, provided that the
average active power in phases A and B has been controlled to
be zero, simultaneously, the average active power in phase C
is naturally zero as well. A mathematical proof for this fact is
presented in Appendix B.
As long as the line A
0
is not parallel to the line B
0
, the
intersection of these two lines must exist. Therefore, for almost
all possible operating conditions, a phasor U
0
in theory can be
found to obtain zero average active power in all three phases.
An extreme case is that the three reference current phasors are
all in phase or in opposite phase, which is almost impossible in
practical applications.
The amplitude and phase of U
0
can also be calculated ana-
lytically. Equation (5) can be rewritten as
_
_
1
2
U
0m
I
ram
cos(
0
ira
) =
1
2
U
sa1m
I
ram
cos(
sa1
ira
)
1
2
U
0m
I
rbm
cos(
0
irb
) =
1
2
U
sb1m
I
rbm
cos(
sb1
irb
).
(6)
By dividing the left parts of these two equations by each other,
a factor k
pow
can be dened as
k
pow
=
cos(
0

ira
)
cos(
0

irb
)
. (7)
By dividing the right parts of (6) by each other, the value of
k
pow
can also be calculated using the known voltage phasors
U
sa1
, U
sb1
, and current phasors I
ra
, I
rb
by
k
pow
=
U
sa1m
cos(
sa

ira
)
U
sb1m
cos(
sb

irb
)
. (8)
Substituting the obtained k
pow
into (7), a solution of the phase
of U
0
can be obtained by
0
= tan
1
_
cos
ira
k
pow
cos
irb
sin
ira
k
pow
sin
irb
_
. (9)
It is necessary to verify the validity of the obtained
0
according
to (6). If cos(
0

ira
) and cos(
sa1

ira
) are both positive
or both negative, the phase of U
0
should be
0
= + tan
1
_
cos
ira
k
pow
cos
irb
sin
ira
k
pow
sin
irb
_
. (10)
Otherwise, the phase of U
0
should be that calculated using (9).
Finally, substituting the calculated
0
into (5), the amplitude
of voltage U
0
can be calculated by
U
0m
=
U
sa1m
cos(
sa1

ira
)
cos(
0

ira
)
. (11)
B. DC-Link Voltage Control
The above analysis is based on the assumption that there is no
converter power loss. However, in the real installation, a small
amount of active power is needed to compensate the power
loss in each phase to maintain the dc-link voltages. The dc-link
voltage control also helps in suppressing transient overvoltages
on dc capacitors. However, for a star-connected structure, only
Fig. 4. Diagram of the dc-link controller.
two phase currents can be independently controlled. To realize
the separate control for the three split dc-link voltages, an active
power control scheme and a modied approach to calculate U
0
are proposed in this section.
As illustrated in Fig. 4, the dc-link voltage controller consists
of three PI loops. Different from conventional approach, the
output of the PI loop is the reference active power in each phase,
instead of the reference active current. In addition, the outputs
of the PI loop are not directly applied to the current control
loop. First, a summed reference active power of the converter is
obtained by
P
r
= P
ra
+P
rb
+P
rc
. (12)
Then, the amplitude of the active current is obtained by
I
rpd2
=
2P
r
3U
s1
. (13)
As explained in Appendix A, the obtained I
rpd2
is used as
the positive-sequence d-axis component when generating the
reference currents.
The next task is still nding the zero-sequence component
U
0
. The generated reference active power P
ra
, P
rb
, and P
rc
are used as the inputs to calculate U
0
. Instead of maintaining
zero active power, the active power in each phase should be
controlled to the target values P
ra
, P
rb
, and P
rc
, respectively.
The following equations are used to calculate U
0
:
_
_
1
2
U
0m
I
ram
cos(
0
ira
) +
1
2
U
sa1m
I
ram
cos(
sa1
ira
) =P
ra
1
2
U
0m
I
rbm
cos(
0
irb
) +
1
2
U
sbm
I
rbm
cos(
sb
irb
) =P
rb
.
(14)
Using a similar method to the case of zero average active
power, it can be proved that an adequate voltage phasor U
0
can
be found out to satisfy (14). As illustrated in Fig. 5, to obtain
active power of P
ra
in phase A, the voltage phasor U
0
should be
located on the line A
0
, where U
0d
= U
sa1m
cos
a
+ U
0d
and (1/2)U
0d
I
ram
= P
ra
. Line B
0
can be obtained in a sim-
ilar manner and the resultant phasor U
0
will be located at the
intersection of these two lines.
The amplitude and phase of U
0
can be analytically calcu-
lated in a similar way. According to (14), the right sides of
equation (6) should be modied as P
ra
(1/2)U
sa1m
I
ram
cos(
sa1

ira
) and P
rb
(1/2)U
sb1m
I
rbm
cos(
sb1

irb
), respectively. Then, compared with (8), the method for
Fig. 5. Phasor diagram showing how to nd out voltage U
0
in Phase A when
dc-link voltage control is applied.
calculating the value of k
pow
should be modied as
k
pow
=
2P
ra
/I
ram
U
sa1m
cos(
sa

ira
)
2P
rb
/I
rbm
U
sb1m
cos(
sb

irb
)
. (15)
Finally, still using the (9)(11), the phase and amplitude of U
0
can be calculated.
Therefore, using the calculated U
0
, the active power in phase
A and that of phase B are adjusted to be P
ra
and P
rb
, respec-
tively, and the active power in phase C will naturally be P
rc
.
Since P
ra
, P
rb
, and P
rc
are determined by the dc-link voltage
controller, the dc-link voltage control for the three phase legs
are consequently realized.
The dc-link voltages u
dca
, u
dcb
, and u
dcc
are the equivalent
total dc-link voltages of each phase leg. In other words, their
values are obtained by summing the dc-link voltages of all the
converter cells in the corresponding phase leg, respectively. Note
that the dc-voltage equalization for the converter cells in one
phase leg is another important problem in cascade converters
and various solutions have been reported [6], [9], [21], but that
is not the subject of this paper.
The idea presented here can be summarized as follows: rst,
determine the total active power in three phases. Then, adjust
the active power in each phase to the target value using the
0
. In fact, if the dc-link voltage control
is not taken into consideration and the average active power in
each phase is controlled as zero, it is just the case when P
ra
= 0,
P
rb
= 0, and P
rc
= 0.
C. System Model and Current Tracking Control
Now that the amplitude and the phase of U
0
have been cal-
culated, the instantaneous voltage of U
0
can be obtained by
u
0
= U
0m
cos(t +
0
) (16)
where t is the synchronous rotating angle generated by the
phase-locked loop (PLL). And the three instantaneous line-to-
neutral voltages of the equivalent power supply can be obtained
by
_
_
u
sa
= u
sa1
+u
0
u
sb
= u
sb1
+u
0
u
sc
= u
sc1
+u
0
.
(17)
The model of a star-connected STATCOM is described in
Appendix C. Note that if the zero-sequence component of the
converter output voltages is equal to the counterpart of the power
supply voltages, u
t0
and u
0
can be cancelled by each other
in (C.7). In other words, the neutral of the equivalent power
supply and the neutral of the cascade converter are virtually
connected. As a result, the star-connected STATCOM system
can be decoupled into three single-phase systems. Therefore,
the current tracking controller can be designed according to the
following equations:
_
_
u
sa
= L
di
a
dt
+Ri
a
+u
ta
u
sb
= L
di
b
dt
+Ri
b
+u
tb
(18)
u
tc
= 3u
0
u
ta
u
tb
(19)
where u
sa
and u
sb
are the line-to-neutral voltages of the equiva-
lent power supply, u
ta
and u
tb
are the converter output voltages,
i
a
and i
b
are the STATCOM currents, u
0
is the zero-sequence
component of the equivalent power supply voltages, and u
t0
is
the zero-sequence component of the converter voltages.
The system model described using (18) and (19) leads to the
following conclusions.
1) By forcing u
t0
to be equal to u
0
, the star-connected cas-
cade STATCOM can be decoupled into three single-phase
cascade STATCOMs. For each phase leg, the current con-
troller can simply use the obtained line-to-neutral voltage
of the equivalent power supply as the input source volt-
age, and then give the corresponding required converter
voltage reference of this phase leg.
2) Since the average active power in each power supply phase
has been controlled to be the target value, the average
active power in the corresponding converter leg will be
the same target value accordingly.
3) Only two-phase reference voltages are needed to be pro-
duced by the current control loop. The required converter
voltage of the other phase is simply obtained using (19),
aimed at forcing u
t0
to be equal to u
0
. On the other hand,
this also corresponds with the fact that only two-phase cur-
rents can be independently controlled for a star-connected
structure.
D. Controller Design
According to the aforementioned control scheme, Fig. 6
shows a block diagram of the designed controller for a star-
connected cascaded STATCOM. As can be seen, the controller
is divided into three stages according to their functions. The rst
stage is the phasor calculator. In this stage, using phasor rep-
resentation, the line-to-neutral voltages of the equivalent power
supply are calculated using the method presented earlier, and
Fig. 6. Block diagram of the controller for a star-connected cascaded STATCOM.
the reference currents determination and dc-link voltage control
are implemented. Then, the obtained phasors are converted into
instantaneous values. The instantaneous line-to-neutral voltages
u
sa
, u
sb
, and u
sc
, the zero-sequence voltage u
0
, and the refer-
ence currents i
ra
, i
rb
, and i
rc
are used as the inputs to the next
stage. In the current controller stage, the STATCOM current is
fed back and a close-loop current control is implemented. In this
paper, a deadbeat controller is employed for reference currents
tracking. The outputs of the current controller stage are the ref-
erence voltages normalized with respect to the corresponding
dc-link voltages. According to the obtained reference voltages,
the gating signals are generated in the modulator stage. The
most common approach for realizing the pulsewidth modulation
(PWM) for a cascade converter is the carrier-based phase-shift
PWM scheme.
When being used for the transmission application, the block
of reference current determination in the phasor calculator stage
can be simply replaced using that shown in Fig. 21.
III. ANALYSIS OF THE OPERATING RANGE
Although an appropriate U
0
can be found out for almost all
possible operation conditions in theory, the operating range of
a star-connected STATCOM is still limited to the degree of un-
balance in practical application. This limitation is determined
by the maximum attainable output voltage of the converter leg.
Fig. 7 shows an example of voltage phasor triangle to show this
limitation. To simplify the analysis, the active power in each
phase for dc-voltage controlling is not taken into account. This
simplication is reasonable, since the absorbed active power is
very small. As illustrated in this diagram, to obtain zero ac-
tive power in each phase, the line-to-neutral voltage phasors
U
sa
, U
sb
, and U
sc
must be perpendicular to the given refer-
ence current phasors I
ra
, I
rb
, and I
rc
, respectively. Since the
given three-phase reference currents are unbalanced, the line-
to-neutral voltages are unbalanced as well, and the amplitude of
the obtained voltage phasor U
sa
is comparatively high in this
example. Consequently, the required converter voltage might
exceed the maximum converter voltage rating and the converter
will operate in overmodulation mode. If the required converter
voltage is too high, the dc-link voltages will be uncontrollable,
Fig. 7. Voltage phasor triangle.
since the converter cannot output the expected voltages to main-
tain zero active power.
A. Distribution Application
For distribution applications, unbalance load compensation is
one of the tasks of the STATCOM. To simplify the analysis, the
three-phase network voltages are assumed to be balanced, and
the line-to-neutral voltage phasors are expressed by
U
sa1
= U
p
0, U
sb1
= U
p

2
3
, U
sb1
= U
p
2
3
(20)
where U
p
is the rated amplitude of the network line-to-neutral
voltages.
The three reference current phasors are expressed by
_
_
I
ra
= I
r1

2
+I
r2
ir2
I
rb
= I
r1
2

2
3
_
+I
r2
ir2
+
2
3
_
I
rc
= I
r1
2
+
2
3
_
+I
r2
ir2

2
3
_
(21)
where I
r1
is the amplitude of the positive-sequence compo-
nent of the reference currents, and I
r2
and
ir2
are the am-
plitude and phase of the negative-sequence component. In (21),
+/2 should be applied, when the phase leg outputs a capacitive
Fig. 8. Relationship between the maximum voltage amplitude U
max
, degree
of unbalance I
r2
/I
r1
, and the phase of negative-sequence current
Ir2
.
reactive current, and /2 should be applied when the phase leg
outputs an inductive reactive current. The degree of unbalance
of the reference current is dened by
k
unb ir
=
I
r2
I
r1
. (22)
Using (9)(11), the amplitude and phase of the zero-sequence
voltage can be obtained, and the three-phase line-to-neutral volt-
age phasors are obtained by
_
_
U
sa
= U
p
(1
0 +k
u0
0
)
U
sb
= U
p
_
1

2
3
+k
u0
0
_
U
sc
= U
p
_
1
2
3
+k
u0
0
_
(23)
where k
u0
=
U
0 m
U
p
= |
cos(
s a 1
i r a
)
cos(
0
i r a
)
|.
Then, the maximum amplitude of the three-phase voltage
phasors is dened by
U
max
= max(|U
sa
| , |U
sb
| , |U
sc
|). (24)
The relationship between the maximum voltage amplitude
U
max
, degree of unbalance I
r2
/I
r1
, and the phase of negative-
sequence current
Ir2
is shown in Fig. 8. It can be concluded that
under unbalanced compensation currents, the maximumvoltage
amplitude of the constructed power supply must be higher than
the rated voltage U
p
(U
max
/U
p
> 1). The value of U
max
/U
p
is mainly determined by the degree of unbalance I
r2
/I
r1
. Also
note that the value of U
max
/U
p
is independent of the amplitude
of the reference currents.
On the other hand, the unbalanced degree of the compensa-
tion currents that the star-connected STATCOM can deal with
is limited to the maximum attainable output voltage of the con-
verter leg. For example, as illustrated in Fig. 8, if the maximum
attainable output voltage is 1.3 U
p
, the converter will operate
in linear modulation range when I
r2
/I
r1
< 32%. If I
r2
/I
r1
is a
little higher than 32%, the converter will operate in the overmod-
ulation range. If I
r2
/I
r1
is too high, the converter will operate
in the invalid operating range.
To ensure a safe operation, a scheme that guarantees the con-
verter to work in the valid operating range should be employed
in the controller design. As illustrated in Fig. 20, an amplitude
limiter that limits the negative-sequence component of the ref-
erence currents to a permissible value K
lim
I
R1
can be used to
determine the reference currents. The value of K
lim
is deter-
mined by the designed maximum attainable output voltage of
the converter leg. The curve shown in Fig. 8 can be used as a
reference when selecting K
lim
. Note that when the degree of
unbalance of load currents is higher than the set-permissible
level, the unbalance currents can only be partly compensated
if the negative-sequence component of the reference currents is
limited to K
lim
I
R1
. However, the safe operation of converter
can be guaranteed.
B. Transmission Application
For transmission application, the unbalance operation is usu-
ally caused by short-duration faults of power system. Since the
maximum voltage amplitude U
max
is dependent on both the
network voltages and the compensation currents during fault,
the analytical analysis of the operating range for transmission
applications is more complicated. However, for short-duration
faults, no special measures are employed in the designed con-
troller to force the converter to work in the valid operating range.
This is based on the consideration that the dc-link capacitance
is enough to maintain the dc-link voltage during short duration
(several power frequency cycles). Another consideration is that
the active power in each phase can still be reduced when employ-
ing the proposed methods even if the converter were operating
in overmodulation mode.
C. Discussion
Based on the aforementioned analysis, some discussions are
presented.
1) The increase of the maximum attainable output voltage
results in the increase of cost. Therefore, a tradeoff be-
tween the cost and the operating range must be optimized
for practical load compensation applications.
2) Note that the limitation of the operating range is not a result
of the proposed control scheme. Instead, it is an intrinsic
characteristic of the star-connected cascade STATCOM,
since the constraint of zero active power in each phase leg
should be met.
3) Due to the limitation of operating range, the star-connected
cascade converter is more suitable for the distribution
applications where the degree of unbalance of the load
currents to be compensated is low. The limitation of the
operating range has a minor inuence on voltage regu-
lation applications and voltage icker reduction applica-
tions. The star-connected cascade converter is also suitable
for transmission applications.
IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
A star-connected cascade STATCOM system rated at
50 MVAr/10 kV was simulated using PSCAD/EMTDC. The
Fig. 9. Simulated waveforms. (a) Load currents. (b) STATCOM current.
(c) Source currents. (d) dc-link voltages.
simulated system has the same conguration as shown in
Fig. 1, and the parameters of the simulated system are listed in
Appendix D.
A. Load Compensation Application
When simulating the STATCOM for load compensation ap-
plication, the three-phase unbalanced loads are connected to the
system as shown in Fig. 1. We use I
Lp
to denote the positive-
sequence active component of the load current, I
Lq
to denote
the positive-sequence reactive component of the load current,
and I
L2
to denote the negative-sequence component of the load
current. The reactive component I
Lq
and the negative-sequence
component I
L2
are to be compensated using the STATCOM.
In the simulated system, the rated amplitude of the line-to-
neutral voltages is U
p
= 8160 V. The reference dc-link volt-
age U
dcr
= 10610 V. When the modulation index is 1.0, the
converter can output a maximum voltage U
max
= 10610 V.
Therefore, U
max
/U
p
= 1.3, and the converter will operate in
the linear modulation range when I
r2
/I
r1
< 32% as analyzed
in Section III.
Case 1: In this case, I
Lp
= 1500 A and I
Lq
= 3000 A. At
t = 0.06 s, the negative-sequence component I
L2
was switched
from 0 to 900 A. Fig. 9(a) shows the waveforms of the three-
phase load currents. Fig. 9(b) shows the waveforms of the STAT-
COMcurrents. In this case, the degree of unbalance of the refer-
ence compensation current was I
r2
/I
r1
= 900/3000 A = 30%.
Therefore, the converter can work in the linear modulation range
and the unbalance load current can be completely compensated.
Fig. 9(c) shows the waveforms of the source currents with STAT-
COM compensation. It can be seen that the negative-sequence
component of the load current was completely compensated af-
ter a transient when the unbalance occurred. This transient is
caused by the settling time of the reference current determina-
tion block, since low-pass lters have to be used to separate
the positive- and negative-sequence components of the load
Fig. 10. Simulated waveforms. (a) Zero-sequence voltage. (b) Line-to-neutral
network voltages. (c) Line-to-neutral equivalent power supply voltages.
Fig. 11. Simulated waveforms. (a) Three-phase active power without the cal-
culated zero-sequence voltages. (b) Three-phase active power with the calcu-
lated zero-sequence voltages.
currents. Fig. 9(d) indicates that the dc-link voltages were well-
controlled under unbalanced compensation currents even during
the transient.
Fig. 10(a) shows the waveforms of the calculated zero-
sequence voltage u
0
. It can be observed that u
0
was active
to balance the active power in each phase leg once the unbal-
ance occurred. The calculated u
0
was injected into the network
line-to-neutral voltages (u
sa1
, u
sb1
, and u
sc1
), and the wave-
forms are shown in Fig. 10(b). Then, the line-to-neutral volt-
ages of the equivalent power supply (u
sa
= u
sa1
+u
0
, u
sb
=
u
sb1
+u
0
, u
sc
= u
sc1
+u
0
) were obtained and their waveforms
are shown in Fig. 10(c).
Fig. 11 shows the effects of u
0
on the average active power
in each phase leg through a comparison. The generated active
power by the voltages u
sa1
, u
sb1
, and u
sc1
in each leg are shown
in Fig. 11(a). It can be seen that one phase leg absorbs negative
active power and the other phase leg the positive active power
under unbalance operation conditions, although the summed ac-
tive power of the three phases is nearly zero. This will result in
uncontrollable dc-link voltages. When using the selected equiv-
alent power supply voltages u
sa
, u
sb
, and u
sc
, zero active power
in each leg is well-guaranteed during unbalanced operation.
Fig. 12. Simulated waveforms. (a) Reactive component. (b) Negative-
sequence component. (c) Normalized reference voltages. (d) dc-link voltages.
Case 2: In this case, I
Lp
= 1200 A and I
Lq
= 2000 A. At
t = 0.06 s, the negative-sequence component I
L2
was switched
for 0 to 1200 A. Fig. 12(a) shows the reactive component of
the load currents I
Lq
and that of the source currents I
Sq
, re-
spectively. It is observed that the reactive component of the
load current is completely compensated by the STATCOM. If
the negative-sequence component I
L2
was to be completely
compensated, the degree of unbalance of reference compen-
sated current will be 60%. In this simulation case, to guar-
antee the converter work in the linear modulation mode, the
permissible unbalance level K
lim
is set to be 30%. Fig. 12(b)
shows the negative-sequence components of the load currents
I
L2
and the counterpart of the source currents I
S2
, respectively.
Since the negative-sequence component of the reference was
K
lim
I
Lq
(30%2000 A = 600 A), the unbalance loads were
only partly compensated and the negative-sequence component
of the source current was reduced but not eliminated. Fig. 12(c)
shows the waveforms of the reference output voltages for the
PWM that have been normalized with respect to the dc-link
voltages. It can be seen that the converter was working on the
boundary of the linear modulation range since the amplitude
of u
ra
almost reached 1.0. Fig. 12(d) shows that the dc-link
voltages were still well-controlled, since the converters were
working in the linear modulation range.
Case 3: In this case, all the operating conditions are the same
as those of case 2. However, to compensate more unbalanced
load currents, the permissible unbalance level K
lim
was set to
be 50%. As illustrated in Fig. 13(b), more unbalanced currents
(50%2000 A = 1000 A) were compensated compared with
that in case 2. However, as illustrated using the waveforms of
the normalized reference voltages shown in Fig. 13(c), the con-
verter has been working in the overmodulation operating range.
Fig. 13(d) shows that the dc-link voltages are still controllable.
Fig. 13. Simulated waveforms. (a) Reactive component. (b) Negative-
sequence component. (c) Normalized reference voltages. (d) dc-link voltages.
Fig. 14. Simulated waveforms. (a) dc-link voltages. (b) Normalized reference
voltages.
However, the performance of the dc-link voltage control is not
as good as that in case 2 due to the overmodulation operation.
Case 4: In this case, all the operating conditions are the same
as those of cases 2 and 3. However, there is no limitation to the
negative-sequence component of the reference currents. Fig. 14
shows the waveforms of the dc-link voltages and the normalized
reference voltages. It is observed that the converter cannot work
properly anymore, since the degree of unbalance of the reference
currents is too high and the converter has been working in the
invalid operating range.
B. Transmission Application
The simulated system is still the same as shown in Fig. 1,
except that the unbalance loads are disconnected to the system.
When simulating the STATCOMfor transmission application, to
regulate the line voltages, the voltage regulator shown in Fig. 21
is employed to determine the reference currents. As shown in
Fig. 15(a), the network line-to-line voltages became unbalanced
when a phase-to-phase fault occurred. Once the fault occurred,
the STATCOM output reactive current was used to regulate the
Fig. 15. Simulated waveforms. (a) Line-to-line network voltages. (b) STAT-
COM currents. (c) dc-link voltages. (d) Positive- and negative-sequence com-
ponent of line voltages.
network voltages, as shown in Fig. 15(b). The waveforms in
Fig. 15(b) also indicate that the STATCOM currents are well-
controlled during the fault using the proposed control scheme.
As illustrated in Fig. 15(c), using the proposed method, the
dc-link voltages of the star-connected cascade converter were
effectively controlled during the unsymmetrical fault. Fig. 15(d)
shows the waveform of the positive-sequence component of the
network line-to-neutral voltages. As can be seen, compared with
the resultant waveform without STATCOM compensation, the
positive-sequence component of the line voltages during fault is
effectively improved by the STATCOM.
V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
Experimental results based on a 30-kVAr STATCOM proto-
type have been carried out to demonstrate the performance of
the proposed control scheme. The conguration of the experi-
mental system is similar to that shown in Fig. 1. The prototype
uses a three-phase star-connected cascade converter and each
phase leg consists of eight series-connected H-bridge converter
cells. The detailed values for the parameters of the prototype are
given in Appendix D.
A concurrent hardware based on an association between
dual data signal processing (DSP) TM320VC33 and eld-
programmable gate array (FPGA) XCS200 was constructed to
realize the control scheme shown in Fig. 6. One DSP is dedi-
cated to realizing the phase calculator, another DSP is dedicated
to realizing the current control loop, and the FPGA is dedicated
to generating the PWM gating signals.
A. Experimental Results for Load Compensation
In the designed controller for load compensation, the per-
missible unbalance level of the reference currents is set to be
30%. Fig. 16 shows the experimental results for a case when
I
Lq
= 12.3 A and I
L2
= 3.7 A. Fig. 16(a)(c) shows the exper-
Fig. 16. Experimental waveforms under unbalanced load currents.
imental waveforms of the load currents, the STATCOMcurrents,
and the source currents, respectively. Fromthe waveforms of the
source currents, we can see that the negative-sequence compo-
nent of the load currents is completely compensated. Fig. 16(d)
shows the experimental results of the dc-link voltages. It is
observed that the dc-link voltages are well-controlled under un-
balanced operation.
Fig. 17 shows the experimental results for a case when I
Lq
=
12.3 A and I
L2
= 7.2 A. Since the unbalanced degree of the
load currents has been increased (I
L2
/I
Lq
= 58.5%), as can
be seen from the waveforms of the source currents shown in
Fig. 17(c), the unbalanced loads are partly compensated since
the degree of unbalance of reference current has been limited
to 30%. As shown in Fig. 17(d), the dc-link voltages are still
well-controlled.
B. Experimental Results for Transmission Application
Fig. 18 shows the experimental results when the STATCOM
is used for a transmission application. As shown in Fig. 18(a),
the voltage imbalance results from a phase-to-phase fault. Once
the fault occurrs, the STATCOM outputs capacitive reactive
currents to regulate the line voltages, as illustrated in Fig. 18(b).
From Fig. 18(c), we can see that using the proposed method
the dc-link voltages of the star-connected cascade converter are
effectively controlled during the asymmetry fault.
Fig. 17. Experimental waveforms under unbalanced load currents.
Fig. 18. Experimental waveforms under asymmetry fault.
VI. CONCLUSION
This paper presented a novel control scheme for star-
connected cascade STATCOMs operating under unbalanced
conditions. An equivalent three-phase star-connected power
supply was constructed. The line-to-neutral voltages of the
equivalent power supply are selected according to the refer-
ence currents to obtain zero average active power in each phase.
Furthermore, when selecting the line-to-neutral voltages of the
equivalent power supply, the average active power in each phase
can also be adjusted to a target value determined by the dc-link
voltage control loop. The separate control of the three dc-link
voltages is thereby implemented. Then, provided that the con-
verter neutral voltage is controlled to be equal to the coun-
terpart of the equivalent power supply, the STATCOM can be
seen as three single-phase systems, and the line-to-neutral volt-
age of the equivalent power supply can be used as the input
voltage to the corresponding phase leg. Therefore, reference
current tracking and zero active power maintaining can be si-
multaneously achieved under unbalanced conditions. The valid
operating range of the star-connected cascade STATCOM un-
der unbalanced conditions is also analyzed. It was shown that
the operating range is limited to the degree of unbalance and
the maximum attainable converter voltage. The detailed simu-
lation and experimental results demonstrate the validity of the
proposed control scheme.
APPENDIX A
DETERMINATION OF REFERENCE CURRENTS
Fig. 19 shows a block diagram for detecting the network
voltage phasors. First, the measured line-to-line voltages are
transformed into a set of line-to-neutral network voltages de-
scribed using (3). Then, through positive- and negative-sequence
dq transformation, the positive- and negative-sequence compo-
nents of the line-to-neutral voltages can, respectively, be ob-
tained. Furthermore, the amplitudes and phases of the network
voltages U
sa1
, U
sb1
, and U
sc1
can also be obtained.
For a distribution application, the method for determining
the reference currents is illustrated using Fig. 20. In the same
way, the positive- and negative-sequence components of the
load currents can be obtained. Note that the synchronous ref-
erence frame for dq transformation should be aligned with
the obtained positive-sequence network voltage phasor, which
is implemented by forcing the synchronous rotation angle
= t +
s1
. Then, the positive-sequence q-axis component,
the negative-sequence d-axis component, and the negative-
sequence q-axis component of the reference currents are de-
termined. The positive-sequence d-axis component of the ref-
erence currents consists of two parts. The rst part I
rpd1
is to
compensate the negative-sequence active power. The negative-
sequence voltage and negative-sequence current may generate
active power expressed by
P
neg
= 3
U
S2m
2
I
r2m
2
cos(
S2

ir2
). (A.1)
Fig. 19. Block diagram for detecting voltage phasors.
Fig. 20. Block diagram for determining the reference current phasors for load
compensation applications.
Fig. 21. Block diagramfor determining the reference currents for transmission
applications.
To compensate this negative-sequence active power, an oppo-
site active power should be generated by the positive-sequence
components. Therefore, the rst part of the positive d-axis com-
ponent of the reference current is obtained by
I
rpd1
=
U
S2m
I
r2m
cos(
S2

ir2
)
U
S1
. (A.2)
The second part of the positive d-axis component I
rpd2
comes
from the dc-link voltage controller, which has been illustrated
using Fig. 4 and (13).
Note that an amplitude limiter is used to limit the negative-
sequence component of the reference currents to a permissible
level, the aim of which has been explained in Section III.
For transmission applications, the method for determining the
reference currents is dependent on the employed power system
control algorithm. Fig. 21 shows an example of the ac-voltage
regulator, where the three-phase reference currents are generated
through a PI voltage control loop.
APPENDIX B
MATHEMATICAL PROOF OF THE ACTIVE POWER IN PHASE C
As illustrated in Appendix A, the positive d-axis component
of the reference currents is determined by the summed three-
phase reference active power P
R
and results in the following
equation:
1
2
U
sa1m
I
ram
cos(
sa1
ira
) +
1
2
U
sb1m
I
rbm
cos(
sb1
irb
)
+
1
2
U
sc1m
I
rcm
cos(
sc1

irc
) = P
r
. (B.1)
Note that i
ra
+i
rb
+i
rc
= 0 due to the open neutral point of
the star-connected converter. The three-phase power generated
by U
0
will be zero as expressed by
p
0
= u
0
i
ra
+u
0
i
rb
+u
0
i
rc
= 0. (B.2)
Therefore, the summed three-phase active power generated
by voltage U
0
can be expressed by
1
2
U
0m
I
ram
cos(
0

ira
) +
1
2
U
0m
I
rbm
cos(
0

irb
)
+
1
2
U
0m
I
rcm
cos(
0

irc
) = 0. (B.3)
Note that the active power of phase Aand that of phase Bhave
been adjusted to P
ra
and P
rb
, respectively, using the selected
0
as illustrated using (14) in Section II,
and also note that P
R
= P
ra
+P
rb
+P
rc
as illustrated using
(12). By adding (B.1) and (B.3), the average power in phase C
can be obtained by
1
2
U
0m
I
rcm
cos(
0

irc
) +
1
2
U
sc1m
I
rcm
cos(
sc1

irc
)
= P
r
P
rb
P
rc
= P
rc
. (B.4)
Therefore, provided that the active power in phase A and that
of phase B are adjusted to be P
ra
and P
rb
, respectively, using
the voltage U
0
, the active power in phase C will naturally be
P
rc
. This is due to the fact that the zero-sequence voltage phasor
cannot change the three-phase summed power. The zero average
active power approach is a special case when P
ra
= 0, P
rb
= 0,
and P
rc
= 0.
APPENDIX C
SYSTEM MODEL
As depicted in Fig. 2, using the instantaneous values of the
line-to-line voltages and the phase currents, the model of the
star-connected STATCOM system can be described by the fol-
lowing equations:
u
sab
= L
di
a
dt
+Ri
a
+u
ta
L
di
b
dt
Ri
b
u
tb
(C.1)
u
sbc
= L
di
b
dt
+Ri
b
+u
tb
L
di
c
dt
Ri
c
u
tc
(C.2)
u
sca
= L
di
c
dt
+Ri
c
+u
tc
L
di
a
dt
Ri
a
u
ta
(C.3)
where the subscript t indicates the converters output and
u
ta
, u
tb
, and u
tc
are the converter output voltages.
By subtracting (C.3) from (C.1), we can obtain
u
sab
u
sca
= L
d(2i
a
i
b
i
c
)
dt
+R(2i
a
i
b
i
c
)
+ 2u
ta
u
tb
u
tc
. (C.4)
The zero-sequence component of the converter output volt-
ages is dened by
u
t0
=
u
ta
+u
tb
+u
tc
3
. (C.5)
And note that i
a
+i
b
+i
c
= 0, and (C.4) can be rewritten as
1
3
(u
sab
u
sca
) = L
di
a
dt
+Ri
a
+u
ta
u
t0
. (C.6)
The equations for the other two phase currents can be obtained
in the same way. Then, the system model of the star-connected
cascade STATCOM can be described using the line-to-neutral
voltages of the equivalent power supply
_
_
u
sa
u
0
= L
di
a
dt
+Ri
a
+u
ta
u
t0
u
sb
u
0
= L
di
b
dt
+Ri
b
+u
tb
u
t0
u
sc
u
0
= L
di
c
dt
+Ri
c
+u
tc
u
t0
.
(C.7)
APPENDIX D
Parameters of the simulated STATCOM system:
Rated network line-to-line voltage (rms): 10 kV;
Thevein inductance of the power system L
s
: 0.47 mH;
Interface Inductor L: 0.95 mH (0.15 p.u.);
Equivalent resistance R
S
: 0.025 (0.0125 p.u.);
Rated capacity of the converter: 50 MVA;
Number of the series-connected inverter cells in each phase
leg N: 8;
Rated dc voltage of each inverter cell: 1326 V;
Rated ac current of the converter leg (rms): 2890 A;
dc capacitance of each inverter cell: 9000 F;
Switching Frequency of each device: 500 Hz;
Parameters of the 30 kVAr prototype system:
Rated network line-to-line voltage (rms): 1 kV;
Thevein inductance of the power system L
s
: 8.0 mH;
Interface inductor L: 15.9 mH;
Rated capacity of the converter: 30 kVA;
Number of the series-connected inverter cells in each phase
leg N: 8;
Rated dc voltage of each inverter cell: 133 V;
Rated ac current of the converter leg (rms): 17.3 A;
dc capacitance of each inverter cell: 2350 F;
Switching frequency of each device: 500 Hz;
Valves type: IGBT (BSM75GB60DLC).
REFERENCES
[1] F. Z. Peng, J.-S. Lai, J. W. McKeever, and J. Van Coevering, A multilevel
voltage-source inverter with separate dc sources for static VAR genera-
tion, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 32, no. 5, pp. 11301138, Sep./Oct.
1996.
[2] J.-S. Lai and F. Z. Peng, Multilevel convertersA new breed of power
converters, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 32, no. 3, pp. 509517, May/Jun.
1996.
[3] C. K. Lee, J. S. K. Leung, S. Y. R. Hui, and H. S. Chung, Circuit-level
comparison of STATCOM technologies, IEEE Trans. Power Electron.,
vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 10841092, Jul. 2003.
[4] D. J. Hanson, A transmission SVC for National Grid Company plc in-
corporating a 75 MVAr STATCOM, Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng. Colloq.,
vol. 500, pp. 5/15/8, Nov. 1998.
[5] C. Han, Z. Yang, B. Chen, A. Q. Huang, B. Zhang, M. R. Ingram, and
A. Edris, Evaluation of cascade-multilevel-converter-based STATCOM
for arc furnace iker mitigation, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 43, no. 2,
pp. 378385, Mar./Apr. 2007.
[6] H. Akagi, S. Inoue, and T. Yoshii, Control and performance of a trans-
formerless cascade PWM STATCOM with star conguration, IEEE
Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 43, no. 4, pp. 10411049, Jul./Aug. 2007.
[7] D. Soto and R. Pena, Nonlinear control strategies for cascaded multilevel
STATCOMs, IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 19191927,
Oct. 2004.
[8] Y. Liang and C. O. Nwankpa, Anewtype of STATCOMbased on cascad-
ing voltage-source inverters with phase-shifted unipoloar SPWM, IEEE
Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 35, no. 5, pp. 11181123, Sep./Oct. 1999.
[9] Q. Song, W. H. Liu, and Z. C. Yuan, Multilevel optimal modulation
and dynamic control strategies for STATCOMs using cascaded multilevel
inverters, IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 19371946, Jul.
2007.
[10] C. Hochgraf and R. H. Lasseter, Statcom controls for operation with
unbalanced voltages, IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 538
544, Apr. 1998.
[11] A. Ghosh and A. Joshi, A new approach to load balancing and power
factor correction in power distribution systems, IEEE Trans. Power Del.,
vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 417422, Jan. 2000.
[12] C. Chen and Y. Hsu, A novel approach to the design of a shunt active
lter for an unbalanced three-phase four-wire system under nonsinusoidal
conditions, IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 12581264, Oct.
2000.
[13] S. George and V. Agarwal, A DSP based optimal algorithm for shunt
active lter under nonsinusoidal supply and unbalanced load condi-
tions, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 593601, Mar.
2007.
[14] A. Chandra, B. Singh, B. N. Singh, and K. Al-Haddad, An improved
control algorithm of shunt active lter for voltage regulation, harmonic
elimination, power-factor correction and balancing of nonlinear loads,
IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 495507, May 2000.
[15] H. Song and K. Nam, Dual current control scheme for PWM converter
under unbalanced input voltage conditions, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron.,
vol. 46, no. 5, pp. 953959, Oct. 1999.
[16] B. Bl azc and I. Papc, Improved D-StatCom control for operation with
unbalanced currents and voltages, IEEETrans. Power Del., vol. 21, no. 1,
pp. 225233, Jan. 2006.
[17] J. Pou, D. Boroyevich, and R. Pindado, Effects of imbalances and
nonlinear loads on the voltage balance of a neutral-point-clamped in-
verter, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 123131, Jan.
2005.
[18] Y. Jiang and A. Ekstrom, Applying PWM to control overcurrents at
unbalanced faults of forced-commutated VSCs used as static VAR com-
pensators, IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 273278, Jan.
1997.
[19] A. M. Gole, M. Mohades, and S. Elez, Steady state frequency response
of StatCom, IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 1823, Jan.
2001.
[20] R. E. Betz, T. Summers, and T. Furney, Symmetry compensation using
a H-bridge multilevel STATCOM with zero sequence injection, in Conf.
Rec. 2006 IEEE Ind. Appl. Conf., 41st Ind. Appl. Soc. Annu. Meeting, Oct.
812, vol. 4, pp. 17241731.
[21] A. J. Watson, W. Wheeler, and J. C. Clare, A complete harmonic elim-
ination approach to DC link voltage balancing for a cascaded multilevel
rectier, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 54, no. 6, pp. 29462953, Dec.
2007.
Qiang Song was born in Changchun, China, in 1975.
He received the B.E.E. and Ph.D. degrees from
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 1998 and
2003, respectively, both in electrical engineering.
Since 2003, he has been a Lecturer in the
Department of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua
University. His current research interests include
high-power electronic interfaces for utility systems,
exible ac transmission systems, and motor drives.
Wenhua Liu (M02) was born in Hunan, China, in
1968. He received the B.E.E., M.E.E., and Ph.D. de-
grees from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in
1988, 1993, and 1996, respectively, all in electrical
engineering.
He is currently a Professor in the Department of
Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University. His cur-
rent research interests include high-power electronic
and exible ac transmission systems.

Control of A Cascade STATCOM With Star Configuration Under Unbalanced Conditions

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Control of A Cascade STATCOM With Star Configuration Under Unbalanced Conditions

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 24, NO.

You might also like