Control of STATCOM by Using Optimal Reactive

Power Flow Solutions

D. Uthitsunthorn, U. Kwannetr, N. Sinsuphun, U. Leeton, and T. Kulworawanichpong
Power System Research Unit, School of Electrical Engineering
Institute of Engineering, Suranaree University of Technology,
Nakhon Ratchasima, THAILAND 30000

Abstract-This paper presents an application of optimal
reactive power flow solutions to command the reactive power
injection of STATCOM. Typically, a reactive power compensator
such as STATCOM can be controlled by various means. The
optimal power flow solution is very useful. It is an optimizer in
which a particular objective is minimized while meeting all
system constraints. In this paper, solutions of optimal reactive
power flows are used to set as the reference to the STATCOM’s
controller. To demonstrate this control strategy, 24-hour optimal
power flow solutions of a simple three-bus test system was
employed for test. The result showed that reactive power
compensation by using the optimal reactive power flow solution
can lead to the minimum power loss operation of the entire
power system and the system voltage profile is flat and smooth.
I. INTRODUCTION
As the need of deregulation for worldwide electric utility
industries, utility transmission systems are approaching their
limits. This makes the need for reliable power greater than
ever. In deregulation environment, the need for new power
flow controllers to enhance transmission line capability will
increase. Principally, these new controllers should be able to
control voltage level and increase power flow capability of
transmission line to their secure loading with no reduction of
system stability and security margins.
The concept of FACTS (Flexible AC Transmission Systems)
uses the advancement of high power-rating semiconductor
keep each device in the power system within its desired
operation range at steady-state. This will include maximum
and minimum outputs for generators, maximum MVA flows
of power transmission lines and transformers, as well as
system bus voltages within specified ranges.
In this paper, to command the voltage magnitude of
STATCOM is based on a sequence of optimal reactive power
flow solutions. This control strategy can lead to the
coordination of available reactive power compensators.
II. STATIC SYNCHRONOUS COMPENSATOR (STATCOM)
A. Structure and Its Operation
In electric power transmission networks, STATCOM is a
shunt device that regulates the system voltage by absorbing or
generating reactive power at a point of coupling connection
[3]. The schematic diagram of STATCOM’s structure is
shown in Fig 1. The STATCOM is a solid state DC/AC power
switching converter that consists mainly of a three-phase
PWM voltage source converter (VSC) bridge having six GTO-
based switches with associated anti-parallel diodes[4]-[5]. It is
connected to the power transmission network via the
impedance of the coupling transformer. A DC-link capacitor
provides constant DC link voltage.
Rs Ls

switching devices to enable flexibility of system operation

with fast and reliable control. STATCOM (Static Synchronous
L filter

Compensator) is a representative of the FACTS devices based

C filter

on a voltage source converter which can be used for shunt

reactive power compensation and dynamic voltage regulation
[1]. The STATCOM regulates the grid voltage by either
injecting or absorbing reactive power that will compensate the
voltage drop across the distribution line inductance. By
Figure 1. Simplified power system equipped with STATCOM
controlling the magnitude of the STATCOM voltage [2], the
reactive power exchange between the STATCOM and the
The output voltage of the STATCOM is generated by a
transmission line and hence the amount of shunt compensation
DC/AC voltage source converter operated from a DC-link
in the power system can be established.
energy storage capacitor. From the DC input voltage, provided
Optimal reactive power flow is a nonlinear constrained
by a charged capacitor, the converter produces a set of
optimization problem. Its primary goal is to minimize the total
controllable three-phase output voltages at the frequency of
power transmission loss of the entire system to serve the load
the AC power system. Each output voltage is in phase with
demand for a particular power system while maintaining the
and coupled to the corresponding AC voltage via tie reactance
security of the system operation. This operation is subjected to
[6]. By varying the magnitude of output voltage produced, the
reactive power exchange between the STATCOM and the AC problem can be expressed as a constrained optimization
power system is controlled. If the amplitude of output voltage problem as follows.
is increased (or decreased) above the AC system voltage, the
converter generates (or absorbs) reactive power for the AC Minimize f(x)
power system. The STATCOM acts as a shunt compensator Subject to g(x) = 0, equality constraints
connected in parallel to the system so that it can inject h(x) ≥ 0, inequality constraints
appropriate compensation currents [7]. The STATCOM has
several advantages, compared to a conventional static var By converting both equality and inequality constraints into
compensator (SVC). It is faster, can produce reactive power at penalty terms and therefore added to form the penalty function.
low voltage, does not require thyristor-controlled reactors
(TCR) or thyristor-switched capacitors (TSC), and does not P(x) = f(x) + Ω(x) (1)
produce low order harmonic. Ω(x) = ρ{g2(x) + [max(0,h(x))]2} (2)

B. Control of STATCOM Where

A PWM pulse generator with a relatively high carrier P(x) is the penalty function
frequency is used to control the GTO-based converter bridges. Ω(x) is the penalty term
The modulation scheme used is a sinusoidal type. The ρ is the penalty factor
controller diagram is shown in Fig. 2. It consists of several
sub-systems: a phase-locked loop (PLL), αβ to dq By using a concept of the penalty method [9], the
transformation, the measurement system, a voltage regulation constrained optimization problem is transformed into an
loop and sine PWM generators. To simulate its control unconstrained optimization problem in which the penalty
function, the PLL is implemented on the digital simulator for function as described above is minimized.
creating the reference angle for a firing circuit. Diagram of
PLL is illustrated in Fig. 3 [7]-[8]. B. Objective Function
p = vα iα + vβ iβ p In general, the power transmission loss function is typically
q = vβ iα + vα iβ q set as the objective function. The power transmission loss can
θv vα vd
be expressed as follows.
va δ
αβ ∑ ∑
vb PLL v vq 1 NL NL
∑∑ gi , j {Vi 2 + V j2 − 2ViV j cos(δ i − δ j )}
β
vc dq vref Floss = (3)
ia iα
αβ
id ua* 2 i =1 j =1
ib ma ub* j ≠i
PLL i iq
ic β
dq uc*
θi Where Vi is the voltage magnitude at bus i
Tri mf
gi,j is the conductance of line i-j
Figure 2. Controller diagram of the STATCOM δi is the voltage angle at bus i
NL is the total number of transmission lines
cos
vα 2π
va abc reset C. System Constraints
vq PI θ
vb ∑ ∑ Integrator The system constraints for the reactive power flow
controller
vc αβ vβ problems are controlled voltage magnitude, reactive power
2πf 0 injection from reactive power sources and transformer tapping.
sin
The objective use herein is to minimize the power
Figure 3. PLL circuit diagram
transmission loss function by optimizing the control variables
within their limits [9]-[10]. Therefore, no violation on other
quantities (e.g. MVA flow of transmission lines, load bus
III. OPTIMAL REACTIVE POWER FLOW SOLUTION voltage magnitude, generator Mvar) occurs in normal system
A. Problem Formulation operating conditions. These are system constraints to be
The optimal reactive power flow problem is a nonlinear formed as equality and inequality constraints as shown below.
optimization problem. It consists of a nonlinear objective
function defined with nonlinear constraints. The optimal 1) Equality constraint: Power flow equations
NB
reactive power flow problem requires the solution of nonlinear PG,i − PD,i − ∑| Vi || Vj || Yi, j | cos(θi, j − δi + δ j ) = 0 (4)
equations, describing optimal and/or secure operation of j =1
NB
power systems. The general optimal reactive power flow
QG,i − QD,i + ∑| Vi || Vj || Yi , j | sin(θi , j − δi + δ j ) = 0 (5)
j =1
Where PGi is the real power generation at bus i
QGi is the reactive power generation at bus i
PDi is the real power demand at bus i pcc
Qc = Qref
QDi is the reactive power demand at bus i Power system VSC
NB is the total number of buses
θi,j is the angle of bus admittance element i,j +
Vdc
Yi,j is the magnitude of bus admittance element i,j -

2) Inequality constraint: Variable limitations

System conditions Reactive power
Vi min ≤ Vi ≤ Vi max (6) Hourly updated command: Qref
Ti min ≤ Ti ≤ Ti max (7) Optimal reactive power
min max flow solver
Q comp ,i ≤ Qcomp ,i ≤ Q comp ,i
(8)
Figure 5. Proposed control scheme of the STATCOM
Pmin
G ,i ≤ PG ,i ≤ PGmax
,i
(9)
Assume that the power exchange between the STATCOM
Where and the entire system occurs at the STATCOM interface
Vi min , Vi max are upper and lower limits of voltage terminal. There are several approaches to command the
magnitude at bus i reactive power of the STACOM. The simplest one is to keep
Ti min
, Ti max are upper and lower limits of tap position of the voltage magnitude at the point of coupling connection
transformer i constant, normally at the system nominal. It is widely used but
Q min max
, Qcomp are upper and lower limits of reactive it does not guarantee the operation of minimum power
comp ,i ,i
transmission loss. To improve this operation, the solutions of
power source i the reactive power flow problems are used to command the
P min
G ,i , P are upper and lower limits of power
max
G ,i STATCOM. The STATCOM should be driven to operate at
generated by generator i the operating point that gives the minimum power loss. This
control scheme can be summarized as shown in Fig. 5.

IV. REACTIVE POWER CONTROL SCHEME

The reactive power flow solution is the steady-state solution
associated with a particular operating condition. To operate
the entire power system during a specified period, e.g. one day
operation, the optimal reactive power flow problem must be
formulated hourly due to the assumption of one-hour load
changing. The solutions of the reactive power flow problems
are the reactive power command to be used as the set point of
the STATCOM controller. This command is changed, hour-
by-hour, to minimize the power overall transmission losses.
V1 Power system
P,Q
V. SIMULATION RESULTS
In this paper, a simple three-bus power system as shown in
Fig. 6 was used for test. Table I gave the test system
parameters. The simulations were performed using MATLAB
software [11]-[12]. The test was carried out by solving the
optimal power flow problem of the power loss objective. Each
power flow solution was sent to command the STATCOM
controller as described earlier. For comparison, the rated value
of voltage magnitude at the point coupling connection was
regulated. Each method was challenged by solving a given
optimal power flow problem of one day period. Daily load for
the test system was presented in Table II.
Bus A Bus B Bus C

P,Q +
VS VR Vdc
- Load 1
Load 2

VSC
STATCOM
V2

Figure 4. Interfacing diagram of the STATCOM Figure 6. Three-bus test system

 TABLE I voltage regulation at daily load for base case, when the system
TEST SYSTEM PARAMETERS
is operated with no STATCOM .It has the voltage sag at load
Line resistance 0.1 Ω/km point of time period. We have installed STATCOM, the
Line inductance 0.95 mH/km voltage are regulated ±10% at 22 kV of distribution voltage.
Line length (Bus 1 – Bus 2) 10 km The base case has the big voltage sag in 2-9 time period but
Line length (Bus 2 – Bus 3) 4 km
after we installed the STATCOM, the voltage is reduced. So,
that the load voltage is regulated around voltage reference.
Interfacing transformer 100 MVA
Interfacing transformer reactance 0.8 Ω TABLE II
DC link voltage of the STATCOM 5 kV DAILY LOAD FOR THE TEST SYSTEM
Time Period Hour Load 1 (MVA) Load 2 (MVA)
Solutions of the optimal power flow problem were used as 1 00.00 – 03.00 5.00 3.61
the reactive power command of the STATCOM controller. 2 03.00 – 05.00 7.81 5.83
This can be simulated by using Power System Blockset (PSB)
3 05.00 – 07.00 15.00 10.82
in MATLAB’s Simulink as shown in Fig. 7. The simulation
model of test system is under the condition of daily load 4 07.00 – 09.00 12.21 8.60
problem with is connected at BUS_B and BUS_C. The 5 09.00 – 12.00 19.70 12.04
STATCOM is installed at BUS_B for reactive power 6 12.00 – 14.00 15.00 10.82
compensation and voltage regulation. Fig. 8 illustrates the 7 14.00 – 17.00 18.03 13.12
control voltage reference with PI-controller. The optimal gain
8 17.00 – 20.00 22.83 14.87
value of kp and ki are used on Signal Constrain Block. The
output of PI-control is used for control phase modulation of 9 20.00 – 22.00 12.21 8.60
control angle to trigger STATCOM. The results of base case, 10 22.00 – 24.00 7.81 5.83
optimal reactive power flow solution and the rated voltage
magnitude regulation were depicted in Fig. 9. It shows in

A aA A A aA A A aA
B bB B B bB B B bB
C cC C C cC C C cC

22 KV BUS_A Line1_10km BUS_B Line2_4km BUS_C

500 MVAsc
B

B
A

A
C

C
C B_load2 C B_STATC OM C B_load1
Discrete,
b

b
a

a
c

c
Ts = 0.0001 s.
A
B
C
A
B
C

Load1
Load2
B4 Pulses
Vdc+
aA A
DC Voltage Source
bB B
Vdc -
cC C

STATCOM
22 kV 100MVA

trig STATCOM V load [Vabc_B2]

STATCOM
PI-Controller

Figure 7. MATLAB Simulation model of the test system

 Voltage From
Minimize Loss
[t' v']

10

In1
delta angle 1
22 Out1 Uref Pulses 1
Voltage
PI In2 z trig STATCOM
Reference
V_reference Discrete
22 kV Discrete Phase modulation PWM Generator
PI Controller of control angle
1 In1 Out1
V load
Voltage Regulator

Signal Constraint

Figure 8. Simulink structure of the STATCOM PI controller

30
VI. CONCLUSIONS
Base case
Vref. 22kV This paper gives an approach of controlling the
25 Vref. from Min.losses STATCOM by using solutions of optimal reactive power
flow problems with the power transmission loss objective.
20 A three-bus power system was established as a test case for
Line Voltage (kV)

benchmarking. The results showed that a set of optimal

15
10
5 [1]
0
0 1 2 3 4 5
Time Period (hr)
Figure 9. Results of the three test cases
All day operation of the three test cases showed that the
reactive command using the optimal reactive power flow
solution gives the best performance which is the lowest one-
day energy losses. The all day power losses of each case can
be presented in Table III for comparison. The base case
gave a construable amount of power losses. It was greater
than that of the STATCOM case due to the system voltage
sag. When we installed STATCOM to compensate, It made
low losses. The losses were decrease when we used the
voltage reference on optimal reactive power flow because it
had the less voltage difference.
TABLE III
COMPARISON AMONG THE THREE TEST CASES
Test Case
1. Base case
2. Rated voltage regulation case
3. Optimal reactive power flow case
solutions with respect to the power transmission loss
objective can lead to the lowest energy losses for one day
operation.
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