Abstract:
In this work a comparative analysis of the
performance of the switched bulk capacitors against
the performance of a STATCOM in the reactive
power compensation of a standalone three phase
reactive power load. The proportional-integral (PI)
controlled is Zeigler Nicholas tuned. A set of four
bulk reactive power compensating three phase
capacitive VAR units are used and a single capacitor
or more number of capacitors of resulting VAR
values closest to the reactive power demand are
connected across the three phase line at the point of
common coupling. Then instead of the discrete
capacitor bank a PI tuned STATCOM is connected
at the point of common coupling and the performance
of PI controller is observed. Then these two variants
of reactive power compensation are compared and
contrasted. The results of the two procedures are
quantitatively analyzed. The transient and steady
state behavior of the two techniques are studied. The
advantages of the use of STATCOM in terms
efficiency and drawback of the STATCOM in terms
of degraded power quality are compared.
