2014 International Conference on Circuit, Power and Computing Technologies [ICCPCT]

A Conceptual Study for Control Strategy of

TCSC in Inductive and Capacitive Region
D. Chatterjee

A. Mitra

Deapartment of Electrical Engineering

Narula Institute of Technology,
Kolkata, India
deb.chatterjee88@gmail.com

Keywords FACTS, Thyristor Control Series Capacitor

(TCSC), Inductor, Capacitor, Thyristor, Firing Angle.

INTRODUCTION

In an effort to meet the power demands of a developing

nation, the Indian energy sector has witnessed a rapid growth.
But resource augmentation and growth in energy supply have
failed to meet the ever increasing demands due to the
multiplying population, rapid physical growth of urban areas,
and progressing economy [1]. So Power System Engineers are
facing great challenges to increase the power transfer capability
of the existing system. But rather than adding of new tie line or
increasing the generation, if the transfer capability can be
increased, then it can be more compatible and effective. And
also more cost effective. To increase the power transfer
capability we have to use many devices such as many types of
filters, AC-DC converter etc. Among them FACT devices are
the new era to match the increasing demand used in series or
shunt. By the use of series fact device the following benefits can
be taken [2]
i.
Increase power transfer capability.
ii.
Improve system stability.
iii.
Reduce total system losses.
iv.
Improve voltage profile of the lines and in total system.
v.
Optimize power flow between parallel lines.
Besides this nature, the FACT devices can perform many
type of operation such as transient stability improvement, power

978-1-4799-2397-7/14/$31.00 2014 IEEE

Deapartment of Electrical Engineering

Narula Institute of Technology,
Kolkata, India
sarkar.sudhangshu@gmail.com

oscillation damping, subsynchronous resonances (SSR)

mitigation and fault current limitation etc. [3]. So the Power
Engineers are attracted by this method to perform a multiple
action by introducing a device which is very cost effective also.
The most advanced FACT device named Thyristor
Controlled Series Capacitor (TCSC), a series compensator,
consists of a series capacitor bank shunted with an inductor bank
which in series with two back to back thyristor to provide a
smoothly variable series capacitive reactance [4]. It can be
concluded that it is the combination of a capacitor and a TCR (a
reactor, series with a back to back thyristor). It can control
overloading and under loading condition automatically. When
the line is lightly loaded then the device will introduce inductive
reactance in series with the line and under heavy loaded
condition, the device will offer capacitive reactance in series
with the line to enhance power transfer capability. To do this
automatically with the change of load, a back to back thyristor
have to be added with the reactor (TCR) which controls the
overall reactance of the device. The TCSC is applied in the
transmission lines for the improvement of the transmission
capacity and stability. Considering the rapid development of
UHV grid and the characteristic of TCSC, it can be predicted
that the TCSC will be installed on the UHV transmission line in
the near future [5].
This paper presents a basic conceptual idea to control the
reactance of TCSC. Under different compensation mode
(capacitive and inductive), corresponding theoretical
background is analyzed. The analysis is verified with MATLAB
Simulink results also. Since, main objective is to develop the
control strategy to vary the effective reactance of the overall
device, an open-loop model consisting a current source and a
parallel combination of a capacitor and a TCR is considered
here.

Abstract With recent development of power electronics

devices and control engineering, FACT devices applicable to
transmission network both for series compensation and shunt
compensation are very useful from the point of view of their
flexibility. To enhance power transfer capability, series
compensation by using FACT device is so chosen that it is cheaper
and less spacious than installing a new generating unit. In this
paper, for series compensation, Thyristor Controlled Series
Capacitor (TCSC) is chosen because of its flexible operation in
inductive as well as capacitive region. Here the basic modelling and
control strategy of TCSC is discussed. A very conceptual
theoretical background for controlling overall reactance of the
device and implementing using the software MATLAB is
established.

I.

S. Sarkar

Deapartment of Electrical Engineering

Narula Institute of Technology,
Kolkata, India
arkendu83@gmail.com

II. B ASIC T HEORETICAL B ACKGROUND

The inductive part of the TCSC consists of a fixed inductor
(preferably air-cored) of inductance L and two anti-parallel
thyristors connected in series with the inductor. The thyristors
are operated by simultaneous application of gate pulse to the
thyristors of the same polarity. After applying the gate pulse to

2014 International Conference on Circuit, Power and Computing Technologies [ICCPCT]

the thyristor, it maintains its conduction mode until the current

passes through the thyristor becomes zero. In case of ac circuit,
thyristor will automatically block immediately as the ac current
reaches zero, till gate pulse will be applied to the thyristor
further.

Fig. 1.

iL =

V
1
t
V m cos tdt = m sin t
L
L

Vm
(sin t sin )
(1)
L
Since the thyristor will stop conduction as current reaches
zero, eqn. (1) is useful for conduction of thyristor within the
V
interval of t . The term m sin in the eqn. (1) is
L
simply an constant offset depending upon the value of , which
decreases the instantaneous value of inductor current in each
positive half cycle and increases the same in each negative half
cycle as shown in Fig. 2. Clearly from the Fig. 2, inductor
current reaches its zero value before t = when there is some
delay ( ) applied to the firing pulses and the thyristor will stop
V
conduction. With a delay of = 0 , the term m sin in eqn.
L
(1) vanishes and the thyristors are in full conduction mode of
operation.
or,

Basic Circuit of TCSC

The main objective is to control the current through the

inductor by adjusting the firing angle of the gate pulse applied to
the thyristor, this will change the nature of the waveform as well
as the average value of the current through series capacitor and
a result voltage across the device will change. Hence, the
adjustment of firing angle plays an important role to control
the TCSC voltage and current, or in other word, the effective
impedance of the TCSC.
Current through the reactor can be controlled from
maximum (when thyristors are in full conduction mode) to zero
(when thyristors are in blocking mode) by changing the delay of
the firing pulse . Since inductor current lags the voltage by
90, the firing pulse for full conduction of the thyristor is to be
applied at the peak of the voltage. Fig. 2 represents the method
of controlling the inductor current both for positive and negative
current half-cycles, at zero firing angle and at any arbitrary
firing angle . When gate pulse delay is , the current in the
inductor can be expressed with an applied voltage of Vm cos t
gives,

iL =

Now with a delay of =

, the offset value reaches its

2
maximum value which will decrease the instantaneous value of
the inductor current (also reaches its peak value at the same
instant t =

) to zero and both the thyristors are in blocking

2
state and no current will flow through the inductor accordingly.
Applying Fourier Series expansion, the average value of the
fundamental current can be expressed as follows
I Lf ( ) =

Vm

(sin t sin )sin td (t )

Vm 2 1

1
sin 2
L

or,

I Lf ( ) =

xL ( ) = L
= xL

2 sin 2
2 sin 2
(2)

where, xL = L

Now it is clear from the above equation that xL ( ) is a

function of and it varies as varies. When both the
thyristors are in fully conduction mode, whole sinusoidal current
will pass through the inductive reactance and correspondingly
the term in the expression of current sin becomes zero
accordingly. Clearly this situation indicates that the firing angle
of the thyristors is maintained at = 0 and xL ( ) becomes
Fig. 2.

Thyristor Controlled Inductor Current

minimum and its corresponding value will be xL . To find the

maximum value of xL ( ) , differentiating xL ( ) with respect to

and make the value equals to zero, we have,

2014 International Conference on Circuit, Power and Computing Technologies [ICCPCT]

d
[xL ( )] = 0
d
or,

III. TCSC CHARACTERISTICS

= 0
xL
d 2 sin 2

which provides =

From the previous discussion, the effective reactance of

TCSC xTCSC ( ) operates in three region, inductive region,
capacitive region and resonance region as shown in Fig. 3.
Inductive region starts increasing from value x L x C to infinity

(3)

. Putting this value in the expression

2
of xL ( ) , theoretically we get an infinite value of inductive
reactance. So, this situation indicates that for a value of
equals to

in resonance region and decreasing from infinity to x C

capacitive region.

in

, the inductance will offer an infinite reactance. For

2
this value of , no current will pass through the inductance,
also the term in expression of current sin becomes 1, that
indicates the peak value of the current will be subtracted from
the expression of current varying sinusoidal, resulting zero
current through the thyristors as well as inductor. Thus, from the
above observation, xL ( ) can be varied within the range

xL xL ( ) as the firing angle varies 0

.
2
The device TCSC shown in Fig. 1 consists of parallel
combination of a capacitor and an inductor associated with two
anti-parallel thyristors connected in series with the inductor.
Since the effective reactance is a function of the firing angle ,
the net impedance of the device will be
x ( ) xC
(4)
xTCSC ( ) = L
xL ( ) xC
Clearly, from the eqn. (4) that both the capacitive reactance
and variable inductive reactance of the TCSC will offer a
tunable LC circuit, where the value of xL ( ) can be varied from

Fig. 3.

IV. CONTROL S TRATEGY

In case of a parallel LC circuit, voltage across the device

its minimum value xL , when = 0 to its maximum value

(infinity), when =

TCSC Operating Regions

will lag the capacitor current by an angle

. At the time of maximum reactance, no

2
current will flow through the inductive path and the entire line
current will flow through the capacitor. Now decreasing the
value of , the value of xL ( ) goes decreasing, resulting an
inductive path to bypass some of the line current through the
inductor and hence the current flowing through the capacitor
goes decreasing accordingly, resulting an increased value of the
capacitive reactance.
At a certain instant, when xL ( ) will be equal to xC ,
parallel resonance will occur and TCSC will offer theoretically
an infinite reactance. Up to this point of compensation, TCSC
will offer capacitive reactance because till the value of xL ( ) is

current will lag this voltage also by

higher than xC . Compensation beyond parallel resonance,

TCSC will offer inductive reactance because at this point, value
of xC will be higher than xL ( ) . Since, current flows through
the least reactive path, inductive current will be established
beyond the occurrence of parallel resonance.

Fig. 4.

and the inductor

as shown in Fig. 4.

TCSC Inductive Mode

2014 International Conference on Circuit, Power and Computing Technologies [ICCPCT]

In capacitive mode of control, if delay of the firing pulse is

3
slightly decreased from
, this will allow a small current
2
through the inductor following eqn. (1). From eqn. (5), as
inductor current increases, capacitor current will also increase.
The inductor current will stop conduction at an angle 2 . In
this region ( + to 2 ) of operation, capacitor current
will increase in positive half cycle and decrease in negative half
cycle. This sudden increment of capacitor current will change
the polarity of capacitor voltage sharply from its negative to
positive and finally sets at higher value than previous condition
(zero inductor current) as shown in Fig. 6. Hence from the Fig.
6, it can be said that in case of parallel LC circuit, the resonant
charge reversal will create a positive dc offset in positive half
cycle and negative dc offset in negative half cycle of the
capacitor voltage.

Therefore, current flows through capacitor and inductor are

totally out of phase to each other. Inductor current changes its
polarity from negative to positive when the voltage across the
device goes down from its peak value in positive half cycle.
Hence, the delay of the firing pulse should be measured from
the peak value of the capacitor voltage. Now from Fig. 4 and
Fig. 5, the expression for capacitor current can be written as,
i + iL ( ) = iC ( )
(5)
where, iL ( ) is the current flowing through the inductor and

iC ( ) is the current flowing through the capacitor.

For inductive operation, the current through the inductor of
the device must be in same phase with the line current. As
discussed earlier, the fundamental inductor current and the
capacitor current are totally out of phase to each other. Hence,
from Fig. 4, the voltage across the device will lag the capacitor

and clearly, the peak of the voltage in

2
this case will occur at 0 . Since, the delay should be
measured from the peak of the capacitor voltage, the value of
delay angle should be 0 for inductive operation of TCSC.
For capacitive operation, the control strategy should be in
such a way that the current flowing through the capacitor will be
in phase with the line current. If a firing pulse delay is
applied when the inductor current changes its polarity from
negative to positive, from eqn. (1), the term sin will come into
action as discussed earlier. To stop conduction of the thyristor

current by an angle

associated with the inductor, the value of delay should be

2
measured from the instant where inductor current changes its
polarity from negative to positive. Therefore, for capacitive
operation of TCSC, the net value of delay angle should be

3
+ , i.e.,
measured from the zero crossing of the line
2
2
current changes its value from negative to positive as shown in
Fig. 5.

Fig. 5.

Fig. 6.

Voltage and Current waveform of TCSC during

Capacitive Mode Control

Similarly, in case of inductive mode of control, if the delay

of the firing pulse is increased from 0 slightly, inductor
current will decrease according to eqn. (1). Corresponding
capacitor current and voltage across TCSC is shown in Fig. 7.

Fig. 7.

TCSC Capacitive Mode

Voltage and Current waveform of TCSC during Inductive

Mode Control

2014 International Conference on Circuit, Power and Computing Technologies [ICCPCT]

V. S IMULINK MODEL
The Simulink model shown in Fig. consists of a small
sinusoidal current source of 10 Amp (peak), 50 Hz and the
parallel LC network comprising of a capacitor of value 220 F
and an inductor of 10 mH.

Fig. 10.

Simulation Results of Source Current, Capacitor Current,

Inductor Current and TCSC Voltage in inductive
region for firing angle = 36

In capacitive region, simulation is carried out also in two

different firing angles, i.e., (a) = 270 and (b) = 234 .
Corresponding waveforms for line current, capacitor current,
inductor current and voltage across the device are shown
respectively in Fig. 11 and Fig. 12.

Fig. 8.

Simulink Model of Parallel LC Circuit with

controllable Inductive Reactance

VI. S IMULATION RESULTS

The entire simulation is carried out in the regions of
inductive and capacitive. In inductive region, simulation has
been done in two different firing angles, (a) = 0 and (b)
= 36 . Corresponding waveforms for line current, capacitor
current, inductor current and voltage across the device are
shown respectively in Fig. 9 and Fig. 10.

Fig. 9.

Fig. 11.
Simulation Results of Source Current, Capacitor Current,
Inductor Current and TCSC Voltage in capacitive region for firing
angle = 270

Simulation Results of Source Current, Capacitor Current,

Inductor Current and TCSC Voltage in inductive region for firing
angle = 0

Fig. 12.

Simulation Results of Source Current, Capacitor Current,

Inductor Current and TCSC Voltage in capacitive
region for firing angle = 234

2014 International Conference on Circuit, Power and Computing Technologies [ICCPCT]

VII. D ISCUSSION

VIII.
[1]
[2]

Detailed outline of the Indian Energy Sector.

S. Meikandasivam, R. K. Nema, S. K. Jain, Behavioral Study of TCSC
Device A MATLAB/Simulink Implementation, World Academy of
Science, Engineering and Technology 45 2008
[3] D. Jiang, X. Lei, A nonlinear TCSC control strategy for power system
stability enhancement, Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on
Advances in Power System Control, Operation and Management,
AFSCOM 2000, Hong Kong, October 2000.
[4] Hu Zhen_da, Dai Chao_bo, Wu Shou_yuan A Pilot Study of a Novel
TCSC Scheme for the UHV Transmission Lines, 978-1-4577-05472/12/$31.00 2012 IEEE.
[5] E.A. Leonidaki, N.D. Hatziargyriou, B.C. Papadias, G. J. Georgantzis,
Investigation of Power System Harmonics and SSR phenomena related
to Thyristor Controlled Series Capacitors, Paper accepted for
presentation at the 8th ICHQP 98, jointly organized by IEEE/PES and
NTUA, Athens, Greece, October 14-16, 1998.
[6] N .G .Hingorani, Laszlo Gyugyi, "Understanding FACTS", IEEE Press,
2001, pp 223-238.
[7] J. V. Kadia, J. G. Jamnani, Modelling and Analysis of TCSC Controller
For Enhancement of Transmission Network, International Journal of
Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering, ISSN 2250-2459,
Volume 2, Issue 3, March 2012.
[8] Z. Yin, L. Tong, Y. Chen, D. Zhang, C. Guo, Z. Wang, A Study on the
Characteristics of TCSC Based on Digital Simulations and Physical
Experiments, 0-7803-4754-4/98/$10.00 1998 IEEE.
[9] A. Ghosh, A. Joshi, M. K. Mishra, State Space Simulation and Accurate
Determination of Fundamental Impedance Characteristics of a TCSC, 07803-6672-7/01/$10.00 2001 IEEE.
[10] Z. Xueqiang, Study of TCSC Model and Prospective Application in the
Power Systems of China, IEEE 1999 International Conference on Power
Electronics and Drive Systems, PEDS99, July 1999, Hong Kong, pp 688691.

From the graphs shown in Fig. 9 and Fig. 10, it is evident

that the current flowing through the inductor follows the same
phase with the source current and the current flowing through
the capacitor is in opposite phase of that of inductor current.
Since, there is no device for blocking the current through
capacitor, a certain amount of current will flow through it, but
the considerable amount of source current will flow through the
inductor. Hence, these regions can be considered as inductive
region.
Similarly, from the graphs shown in Fig. 11 and Fig. 12, the
current flowing through the capacitor follows the same phase
with the source current and the current flowing through the
inductor is in opposite phase of that of inductor current. In case
of fully blocking state of thyristors, i.e., for = 270 , a
negligible amount of current (leakage current of the thyristors)
will flow through the inductor as shown in Fig. 11. When the
thyristors are not in fully blocking state, a certain amount of
current will flow through the inductor following eqn. 1 as shown
in Fig. 12.
Table I gives the simulation data for the fundamental rms
value of source current, capacitor current, inductor current and
capacitor voltage respectively for both the regions.
TABLE I.
Firing
Angle
0
36
234
270

Source
Current
7.071

Capacitor
current
1.963
7.219
17.65
7.055

SIMULATION R ESULTS
Inductor
Current
9.033
14.29
10.57
0.016

Capacitor
Voltage
28.4
104.5
255.3
102.1

REFERENCES

Region
Inductive
Capacitive

From the above table, it is clear that the inductor current is

the addition of the source current and the capacitor current
in case of inductive region and the capacitor current is the
addition of source current and inductor current in case of
capacitive region following eqn. 5. This phenomena happens
due to phase opposition of inductor current and capacitor current
as shown in Fig. 1.