SUMMARYDue to the diversity of operating conditions of real-time power system, traditional power oscillation damping controller (PODC) of static synchronous compensator (STATCOM), which only considers single operating condition, could not provide sufficient damping when operating condition changes. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a robust design method for PODC. The total least squares-estimation of signal parameters via rotational invariance techniques (TLS-ESPRIT), which performs well in term of anti-noise and accuracy, is suggested to identify the transfer function and residues of the system. The residue-based approach considers several typical operating conditions so that the designed PODC could adapt to multiple operating conditions. The simulation result demonstrates that, compared with the traditional method, PODC of STATCOM designed by the proposed method damps the low-frequency oscillation more effectively and is more adaptable to the change of operating conditions.