Design and Analysis of STATCOM for Reactive Power Compensation using Three Phase Multilevel Inverter

Abstract

This paper proposes the concept of reactive power compensation with the aid of STATCOM (static synchronous compensators) and three phase multilevel inverter. The classification of multilevel inverters under three major types which are H-bridge inverter, flying capacitors-based inverter and diode clamped multilevel inverter. Among these multilevel inverters, the diode clamped type is stressed in this paper due to its capability to process 3-phase output in the absence of any input. Here the reactive power is compensated using 7-level based multilevel inverter with diode clamps are made utilizing the capacitors banks, diodes and switches which would therefore abates the voltage stresses and harmonics resulting in higher efficiency of the power system. Besides the functioning of multilevel inverter, STATCOM is also utilized to improve the regulation of reactive power flow and thereby, enhances the stability under transient condition of a power system. Subsequently, the compensated seven level output is procured by the sinusoidal PWM technique.