Nowadays energy demand increases continuously and increasing of energy efficiency in available energy transmission and distribution systems has greater importance than activating of new energy plants. Therefore in recent years, FACTS and custom power devices rapidly find area of usage in transmission and distribution systems respectively. The device most noticeable of these in distribution systems is Distribution Static Synchronous Compensator (D-STATCOM) which targets power quality and reactive power compensation problems. However, power losses also occur in these power electronics based devices during operation. Discontinuous Pulse Width Modulation Methods (DPWM) is an energy efficient PWM method applied in motor drives for a long time. DPWM is a PWM method which is not used in the D-STATCOM until today. In open literature, it is not encountered any study relating to this topic intended for D-STATCOM. For this reason, decreasing of power losses arising from D-STATCOM using DPWM methods is aimed at this doctorate study.
In this study, a medium voltage distribution system model is created on the purpose of analyzing of success in providing reactive power compensation and effect of DPWM methods in reducing power losses by using MATLAB-Simulink software. In this model, 2 and 3 level inverter structures are used for D-STATCOM power stage. A loss calculation model is developed with the aim of inverter power losses calculation. The phase angle control algorithm is used for outer control of D-STATCOM. Simulations are carried out adapting of Discontinuous PWM methods to this algorithm. Furthermore, conventional sinusoidal PWM (SPWM) and Space Vector PWM (SVPWM) methods are also applied to D-STATCOM system for comparison purposes. In simulation studies, power losses during capacitive and inductive operation, harmonic cases and reactive power compensation performance of D-STATCOM are analyzed and examined comparatively through varying of modulation index and switching frequency. These studies show that it is possible to reduce of D-STATCOM switching power losses up to 50% with DPWM methods. Additionally, simulation studies show that DPWM methods successfully fulfill reactive power compensation at high modulation indexes. In this study, according to operation case of distribution system, DPWM3 method is proposed for high modulation indexes as well as SPWM and SVPWM methods are suggested for low modulation indexes in D-STATCOM. |