Power Flow Numerical Assessment of a STATCOM iUPQC Utility Interface for Microgrids

Abstract

The dual unified power quality conditioner (iUPQC) is an active filter that has been studied to be applied as utility interface in microgrid applications. It regulates the voltage of the microgrid side and controls the power flow between the grid and microgrid side. Besides that, ancillary functions to grid side has been proposed to extend its power quality compensation. This paper presents a detailed analytical and numerical analysis of the power flow of an iUPQC, which operates as an utility interface in microgrid applications with the extended function of STATCOM. It can compensate not only the disturbances at the load or microgrid side but also provides a RMS voltage regulation at the Point of Common Coupling (PCC), thus, providing reactive power to the grid. Moreover, the iUPQC power flow is evaluated considering the implementation of the power angle control (PAC), a technique used to share and equalize the power processed by each converter allowing the optimization of this conditioner. Therefore, this study can support the understanding of the power flow of the iUPQC operating as STATCOM, in order to share and optimize the available power in the iUPQC converters using PAC.