IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 6, No.
4, October 1991
Design and Operating Characteristics of a Series Static
Voltage Controller
MOHAMED ALI NOMAN THOMAS H. ORTMEYER, MEMBER
Electrical & Computer Engineering Department
Clarkson University
Potsdam, New York 13676
Abstract- The problem of waveform distortion
of the power system terminal voltage is becom-
in a critical problem especially for computers and
otfey sensitive loads. Elimination of this distortion
requires the ability to generate the compensating
pulses of energy in times much less than the source
period. This paper presents the theory and the ex-
perimental implementation of a new device called
the Static Voltage Controller (SVC) which can elim-
inate waveform distortion and provide a sinusoidal
volt age.
Keywords: Power Quality, Power Electronics,
Load Management.
1. Introduction
The quality of the power supplied to sensitive
electronic equipment is an important issue. The
power disturbances that affect these sensitive elec-
tronic loads have a variety of sources. Harmonic and
aperiodic currents in power lines generated by elec-
tronic switching circuits in electrical appliances and
by power system devices such as solid state motor
a
drives and lar e controlled rectifiers cause voltage
drops across t e power system impedance. These
voltage drops will cause waveform distortions and
produce amplitude modulation of the power system
t ermi n a1 volt age [ 1- 31.
Most of the industrial and commercial electrical
equipment is relatively insensitive to these distor-
tions on the power line. However, many electronic
devices such as computers and process controls can
be adversely affected by high distortion[4]. Conse-
quently, the objective of this work is to obtain a si-
nusoidal volta.ge from a source which may have har-
monics, spikes, surges or any other irregularities in
shape due to the above mentioned reasons. This
91 WM 105-7 PWRD A paper recommended and approved by
the IEEE Transmission and Distribution Committee of
the IEEE Power Engineering Society for presentation
at the IEEE/PES 1991 Winter Meeting, New York, New
York, February 3-7, 1991. Manuscript submitted
August 27, 1990; made available for printing
January 3, 1991.
0885-8977~1$01.~
1517
work is based on the idea of the hysteretical switch-
ing of a parallel capacitor-switched inductor circuit
presented in [ 5 ] , t o absorb or generate the compen-
sating pulses of energy required to shape the output
volt age waveform.
2. Theory of the SVC
Elimination of the harmonics, spikes, sags, and
sur es from the source voltage and obtaining a sinu-
soifal voltage at the SVC output terminal requires
the ability t o generate or absorb the compensating
pulses of energy in times shorter than a half-cycle.
Basically, the idea behind the compensation for the
input voltage irregularities and distortions consists
in storing energy in the power module and by mak-
ing use of the capabilities of high speed switchin
devices t o give this energy back when it is neede %
t o make up the distortions in the input voltage or
t o absorb any pulses of energy coming from the line
which will cause output voltage distortions. In this
manner, the output voltage can be controlled up t o
the limit of the energy stored in the SVC.
The general block diagram of the SVC is shown
in Figure 1. This device consists of three basic el-
ements, the voltage sensor across the load, the op-
erating logic, and the power module. The power
module employed t o perform the above mentioned
task is shown in Figure 2. It consists of a capacitor
in parallel with a switched inductor and four switch-
ing elements. The switching elements must be self-
commutating switches, such as bipolar transistors,
FET’s or gate-turn-off thyristors (GTO’s). Losses
in the capacitor-inductor circuit and in the switch-
ing elements are neglected for the time being and
can be included later. For the proper operation of
the device, the inductor current needs t o be greater
than the peak load current. The SVC operates with-
out distorting the supply lines, as the current drawn
from the source equals the load current, which will
be sinusoidal for linear loads. With nonlinear loads,
the line current &stortion will not be affected by the
device apart from the effect of feeding the load from
a stiff sinusoidal source.
1991 IEEE
1518

3. Operation of the Power Module

If we assume that the inductor current if is always

positive and greater than the load current, then the
power module can be operated in two modes. Op-
:1 eration in mode 1 will be when the transistors T2
and T 3 are on. This will cause the inductor cur-
rent il and the load current i t o be added causing
(
the ca acitor volta e t o increase. While o eration
I in moBe 2 will be wgen T1 and T4 are on wgich will
II cause these two currents to be subtracted causing
the capacitor voltage to decrease.
The switching between modes is determined by

. i '
comparison of the actual output voltage with the
sinusoidal reference voltage. Referring to Figure 3,
the switching occurs when the output voltage v, de-
viates from the reference command voltage U,* by
v,*- vo fy, where VH is the width of the hysteresis win-
dow. Therefore, the circuit lends itself to hystereti-
cal switching with the actual output voltage being
O-uo controlled within &% of the reference voltage v,*.
In order t o determine the voltages and the cur-
rents as functions of time (which is needed for con-
trolling the circuit), computer simulation of the
problem was carried out using state space approach.
Two sets of state space equations (one set for each
mode) were derived which will describe the behav-
Figure 1: General Block Diagram of the Static Volt- ior of the system in both modes of operation. These
age Controller equations are:

- R +RI
d i = -(L
)i- - U,
t- u= (1)
dt L , t Ll L, + L, L , + Ll
Operation in mode 1 is described by:
dil-
- - --U ,
dt Lind
ii
d v-, - - ir+ - i
+I I I -
dt C C (3)
And the operation in mode 2 is described by:
dil- - v,
- - (4)
dt Lind

dv, = --
- if i
(5)
dt C+C
In these equations the supply source, which might
be a transformer, is represented by vs in series with
the windin resistance R, and the leakage induc-
tance L,. T%e load is represented by a series LI and
RI as shown in Figure 1. Note that the current
Figure 2: Power Module of the Sta.tic Voltage Con- drawn from the source is identical to the current
drawn by the load, so that the SVC will pull a sinu-
troller soidal current from the source when linear loads are
being supplied.
An initial simulation was conducted with the ref-
erence voltage given a fixed amplitude and a fixed
 1519

?SDI

g I:
T W - IAi

-!i
de,&
COMPARATOR

3 -30
0

Figure 5 : Inductor Current under Unregulated v,*

Figure 3: Hysteresis Voltage Controller than the load current, the output voltage will not fol-
M
1 low the reference voltage. After the inductor current
has reached a sufficient value, the SVC will operate
satisfactorily to regulate the output voltage. How-
ever, the inductor current will continue to increase
indefinitely and it is desired to control this current.

4. SVC Analysis

Assuming the time required to increase or de-

crease the capacitor voltage to the upper or lower
limits is much smaller than the source period, the
time required t o increase the capacitor voltage to
the upper limit can be approximated from Equation
3 as follows :
Figure 4: Output Voltage Following the Reference
Volt age.
Similarly, from Equation 5 , the time required t o de-
crease the capacitor voltage t o the lower limit is :

(7)

The change in the inductor current during the

switching times A t , and At2 is found from Equa-
tions 2 and 4 as follows:
Ail1 = - - AVCt ,
(8)
Lind

VC
Ail2 = -At:! (9)
Lind

LInd C L, R, Load pf V, V,
The total inductor current change due to both
modes of operation is:
mH pF pu pu R v v
2 2000 0.03 0.02 0.55 0.9 115.5 110

bind
1520

5 . Dynamic Performance of the SVC

Under sinusoidal source conditions, Equation 13
describes the steady state operating conditions. Re-
v
o ,'
ferring to Figure 6, if we choose the case when v, is
leading i by go", this phasor diagram is valid. For
a given laggin power factor angle 'p, the capacitor
"... .,)(P + 'p) volta e angle is set. Therefore, in the steady state
f
in or er to keep V, constant for the increases in the
input voltage Vi.,,the capacitor voltage and the an-
Figure 6: Vector Diagram of the Power Module gle 6 both have to increase.
The acceleration of the output voltage phasor
from Figure 7 will be:
Substitutin the values of 4 t I and At2 from 6 and
5
7 respective y, we find: 4
d2-
- dil
dt2 - -sf dt (14)
2 C v ~ v,i
Ail = - -
Ltnd i; - i 2 (12) Therefore, referring to Figure 6, there can be three
cases:
Expressing the capacitor voltage and the load cur-
rent phase angles as in Figure 6, the total change Of
1. Case 1. ( p + (r?) = 4.
In this case the net
average energy input to the device is equal to
the inductor current over 2x is equal to: zero, i.e. il is constant, and the Equation 13 is
.m

c 4KvcvH
4 i 4 w t ) = -(-)(- 1,,,(p
Lind 1 the steady state.
Consequently, in order to limit the indefinite in-
ductor current increase as in Figure 5 , we must in-
sure that the active power input t o the device equal
to zero over the source cycle. This means that we
must have the angle (p+cp) between the load current
and the capacitor voltage equal t o * t f .
In order t o regulate the an le of the controller
P
operation, a frequency control oop is added to the
circuit. By using a proportional controller on the
inductor current driving a voltage controlled oscil-
lator, a frequency control circuit is obtained which
will keep the steady state angle at 90" as described
in Equation 13. The resulting controller is shown in
Figure 7. The output of the angle controller
U,' = f i V * s i n 4 is fed to the hysteresis con-
troller shown in Figure 3. The controller in-
cludes supplementary magnitude control to increase
circuit stability. The controllers parameters are:
The magnitude and the frequency
of the reference voltage
Inductor current and its
reference value.
RMS output voltage.
Reference frequency.
Magnitude and frequency
control gains of the reference
volt age respectively.
d'4
satisfied, therefore - = 0 and the circuit is in
$- (r?) (13) dt2
2. Case 2. Suppose that V,, is increased in magni-
tude by AT.:.,, in this case energy stored will
increase at a rate V,Icos(P +
'p) causing il
to increase and consequently, this will make
d2 4
- < 0. In this case the output voltage phasor
dt2
will slow down, 6 will increase causing ( p 4-'p)
to increase towards which will decrease the
energy stored and by that keeping i; constant.
3. Case 3. Suppose the angle 6 has increased mak-
ing VJcos(p + (r?) < 0 which will cause the
energy t o be taken out from the inductor. In
d24 > 0 which means that the output
this case -
dt2
voltage phasor will accelerate causing the angle
+
( p 'p) t o decrease and therefore more energy
will go into the inductor. This will continue
d24 = 0 and the steady state operation is
until -
dt2
restored.
The effectiveness of this proposed control strategy
was studied under the same conditions as in Table 1
with the frequency control gain gf=1.2 (Rad/Sec/A)
and the magnitude control gain g,=0.5 VIA. The
output voltage and the inductor current waveforms
with this angle controller are shown in Figures 8-9.
It can be seen that the controller angle adjusts to
90" so that the inductor current remains constant.
The presence of losses in the inductor (either on
switching or conduction), can be easily accounted

I
 1521

IO

TWO
Figure 9: Inductor Cnhent under Angle Regulation

Figure 7: Block Diagram of the AngIe Regulator

Figure 10: Output Voltage Following the R,eference

Voltage together with the Inductor Current.

for in Equation 2. In this case the equilibrium will

+
exist at an angle ( p cp) slightly less than 2 t o cover
the losses in the inductor.
8. Experimental Results
A prototype of this device was built and made
to operate according to SVC principle of operation
explained earlier. The output voltage obtained is
shown in Figure 10. The command voltage and the
inductor current are also shown in this figure. The
voltages are scaled by a factor of 20, and the scale
for the inductor current is one volt corresponds to
Figure 8: Output and Reference Voltages with Angle one ampere. The center line for the trace is the
Regulation zero point for all these signals. In this figure, the
output volta e clearly follows the command voltage
throughout t8e cycle. The inductor current experi-
ences a relatively small 120 Hz ripple current as ex-
pected. Figure 11 shows the output voltage switch-
ings on an expanded time scale.
The demonstration of the ability of the Static
Voltage Controller to provide an output voltage in-
dependent of the source voltage is shown in Figure
 1522

Figure 13: Experimental Current Ripple Corre-

sponding to Table 3
Figure 11: Output Voltage Switching around the IO, 1

i.
Reference Voltage.

a io

Figure 14: Simulation Current Ripple Cor respond-

ing to Table 3

Figure 12: Output Voltage of the SVC under Non-

Table 2 Data To The Experimental System
sinusiodal Command Voltage I
( 0 ) Ltnd (mH) c ( p F ) I
Rtnd I LS (mH) R, (0) I
1.357 11.0 6.1 1.0 1.0
740) pf gf(R/S/A) gm(V/A) i; (A)
12. In this figure a trapezoidal command voltage 45.31 0.9192 16.18 0.0 5.18
is used, and the SVC output voltage follows this
command within the the usual hysteresis window.
This figure shows that the output voltage is inde-
pendent of the source voltage. From this we can
conclude that if the source voltage has harmonics,
sags and surges, the output voltage of this device
will not be affected by these disturbances and will
follow the sinusoidal reference command as long as
there is enough energy stored in the inductor and Table 3
the rise time of the transients is longer than the SVC type Instab. gj I ifmat I ilmtn 1 L g I fsw .
switching period. R/S/A I A IA IA I kHz
In order to get a close look at the performance of Exp. 20.7 6.8 3.2 4.85 1 19.255
this circuit, the experimental system was modeled in Sim. 32.0 6.81 3.13 4.97 I 19.53
the computer. The data to the esperimental circuit
are shown in the following table. The inductor current ripple for the experimental
and simulation models are shown in Figures 13 and
14.
This circuit exhibits a discrete range over which
the desired operation is realized. At low gain, the in-

I

-7E. F. Fuchs, D. J. Roesler, F. S. Alashab, ”Sen-
Rdsrsnra Inductor Cumnt
Figure 15: Effects of gm on the Range of gf
ductor current drops below load current, and wave-
form error results. At high gains, an instability oc-
curs, where the VCO frequency no longer tracks the
system frequency.
It was shown in the laboratory that voltage mag-
nitude feedback (gm in Figure 7) will increase the
stable region for this circuit as shown in Figure 15.
7. Conclusions
This paper presents the theory and the experimen-
tal verification of a laboratory prototype of a new
device capable of providing clean power t o sensitive
loads. The device operates by using energy stored
in a switched inductor t o shape the output volta e.
This stored energy is used to compensate for t e
distortion in the supply voltage whenever the out-
a New York. In 1986 he joined the Electrical En i-
put voltage deviates from its reference value by a
predetermined level.
The principle of operation of this device is t o com-
pare the instantaneous value of the output voltage
with the instantaneous value of the sinusoidal ref-
erence voltage. The error is given to the hysteresis
comparator t o switch the power transistors in one
mode or in the other, so that the output voltage is
made t o follow the reference voltage. The labora-
tory prototype of this device was built and made
to operate according to the principle of operation
of this device. The experimental results presented
are encouraging. It was shown that the SVC fol-
lows the output voltage command independent of
the source voltage. A good match between experi-
mental and computer simulation results was found.
Furthermore, a stabilizing signal based on voltage
magnitude was introduced.
References
[l] David C. Griffith, ”Working With Waveform
Distortion In Digital Systems”, Powertechnics
Magazine, sep. 1986, pp. 31-34.
1523
sistivity of Electrical Appliances To Harmonics
And Fractional Harmonics of The Power Sys-
tem’s Voltage. Part I: Transformers And Induc-
tion Machine” IEEE Transactions on Power
Delivery, Vol. $WD-2, April 1987, pp. 437-444.
E. F. Fuchs, D. J. Roesler, K. P. Kovacs, ”Sen-
sistivity of Electrical Appliances To Harmon-
ics And Fractional Harmonics of The Power
System’s Voltage. Part 11: Television Sets, In-
duction Watthour Meters and Universal Ma-
chines.”, IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery,
Vol. PWD-2, April 1987, pp. 445-451.
Francois D. Martzloff And Thomas M. Gruzs,
”Power Quality Site Surveys: Facts, Fictions,
and Fallacies”, IEEE Transactions on Indus-
try Applications, Vol. 24, No. 6, Novem-
ber/December 1988, pp. 1005-10018.
T. H. Ortmeyer, ”Static Line Drop Compen-
sator”, Patent Disclosure To Research Corpo-
ration, Sep. 25, 1986, pp. 1-17.
8 . Biography
Mohamed Ali Noman was born in Taiz, Yemen Arab
Republic in 1952. He received his B.S.E.E. in 1980
from Kharkov Polytechnic Institute, USSR and the
Master of Engineering in Electric Power Engineering
in 1986 from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy,
neering department at Clarkson University wheree!
received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering
in 1990.
Thomas H. Ortmeyer received the B.S.E.E. degree
in 1972, the M.S.E.E.in 1977, and the Ph.D. in 1980,
all from Iowa State University.
From 1972 t o 1976 he worked in the Operational
Analysis Department, Commonwealth Edison Com-
pany, Chicago, Illinois. Since 1979, he has been at
Clarkson University, Potsdam, New York, where he
is currently an Associate Professor. His current in-
terests include harmonic performance, power elec-
tronics and machine control, and power system pro-
tection.
He is a member of IEEE, as well as Eta Kappa Nu,
Phi Kappa Phi, and Sigma Xi.