International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR)

ISSN (Online): 2319-7064

Index Copernicus Value (2013): 6.14 | Impact Factor (2015): 6.391

Improvement of Power Quality and Mitigation Case

Study Using Distributed Power Flow Controller
Perala Sridhar
Assistant Professor Department of EEE, Vinuthuna Institute of Technology & Science, Warangal, Telangana

Abstract: According to growth of electricity demand and the increased number of non-linear loads in power grids, providing a high
quality electrical power should be considered. In this paper, voltage sag and swell of the power quality issues are studied and distributed
power flow controller (DPFC) is used to mitigate the voltage deviation and improve power quality. The DPFC is a new FACTS device,
which its structure is similar to unified power flow controller (UPFC). In spite of UPFC, in DPFC the common dc-link between the
shunt and series converters is eliminated and three-phase series converter is divided to several single-phase series distributed converters
through the line. The case study contains a DPFC sited in a single-machine infinite bus power system including two parallel
transmission lines, which simulated in MATLAB / Simulink environment. The presented simulation results validate the DPFC ability to
improve the power quality.

Keywords: FACTS, Power Quality, Sag and Swell Mitigation, Distributed Power Flow Controller

1. Introduction
In the last decade, the electrical power quality issue has been
the main concern of the power companies. Power quality is
defined as the index which both the delivery and
consumption of electric power affect on the performance of
electrical apparatus. From a customer point of view, a power
quality problem can be defined as any problem is manifested
on voltage, current, or frequency deviation that results in Figure 1: The DPFC Structure
power failure. The power electronics progressive, especially
in flexible alternating-current transmission system (FACTS) 2. DPFC Control
and custom power devices, affects power quality
improvement. Generally, custom power devices, e.g., The DPFC has three control strategies: central controller,
dynamic voltage restorer (DVR), are used in medium-to-low series control, and shunt control, as shown in Fig. 2.
voltage levels to improve customer power quality. Most
serious threats for sensitive equipment in electrical grids are A. Central Control
voltage sags (voltage dip) and swells (over voltage). These This controller manages all the series and shunt controllers
disturbances occur due to some events, e.g., short circuit in and sends reference signals to both of them.
the grid, inrush currents involved with the starting of large
machines, or switching operations in the grid. The FACTS B. Series Control
devices, such as unified power flow controller (UPFC) and Each single-phase converter has its own series control
synchronous static compensator (STAT-COM), are used to through the line. The controller inputs are series capacitor
alleviate the disturbance and improve the power system voltages, line current, and series voltage reference in the
quality and reliability. dqframe. The block diagram of the series converters in
Matlab/Simulink environment is demonstrated in Fig. 3.
In this paper, a distributed power flow controller, introduced
in as a new FACTS device, is used to mitigate voltage and
current waveform deviation and improve power quality in a
matter of seconds. The DPFC structure is derived from the
UPFC structure that is included one shunt converter and
several small independent series converters, as shown in Fig.
1. The DPFC has same capability as UPFC to balance the
line parameters, i.e., line impedance, transmission angle, and
bus voltage magnitude.

The paper is organized as follows: in section II, the DPFC

principle is discussed. The DPFC control is described in
section III. Section IV is dedicated to power quality Figure 2: DPFC control structure
improvement by DPFC. Simulation results are presented in
section V.

Volume 5 Issue 9, September 2016

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Licensed Under Creative Commons Attribution CC BY
Paper ID: ART2016610 DOI: 10.21275/ART2016610 40
 International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR)
ISSN (Online): 2319-7064
Index Copernicus Value (2013): 6.14 | Impact Factor (2015): 6.391

Figure 3: Block diagram of the series converters in

Matlab/Simulink
Figure 5: The shunt control configuration: (a) for
Any series controller has a low-pass and a 3rd-pass filter to fundamental frequency (b) for third-harmonic frequency
create fundamental and third harmonic current, respectively.
Two single-phase phase lock loop (PLL) are used to take 3. DPFC Principle
frequency and phase information from network. The block
diagram of series controller in Matlab/Simulink is shown in In comparison with UPFC, the main advantage offered by
Fig. 4. The PWM-Generator block manages switching DPFC is eliminating the huge DC-link and instate using
processes. 3rdharmonic current to active power exchange. In the
following subsections, the DPFC basic concepts are
C. Shunt Control explained.
The shunt converter includes a three-phase converter
connected back-to-back to a single-phase converter. The A. Eliminate DC Link and Power Exchange
three-phase converter absorbs active power from grid at
fundamental frequency and controls the dc voltage of Within the DPFC, the transmission line is used as a
capacitor between this converter and single-phase one. Other connection between the DC terminal of shunt converter and
task of the shunt converter is to inject constant third- the AC terminal of series converters, instead of direct
harmonic current into lines through the neutral cable of Δ-Y connection using DC-link for power exchange between
transformer. converters. The method of power exchange in DPFC is based
on power theory of non-sinusoidal components. Based on
Fourier series, a non-sinusoidal voltage or current can be
presented as the sum of sinusoidal components at different
frequencies. The product of voltage and current components
provides the active power. Since the integral of some terms
with different frequencies are zero, so the active power
equation is as follow:
∞

𝑝= 𝑉𝑖𝐼𝑖 cos 𝜑𝑖 (1)

𝑖=1
Where Vi and Ii are the voltage and current at the ith harmonic,
respectively, and φi is the angle between the voltage and
current at the same frequency. Equation (1) expresses the
active power at different frequency components are
Figure 4: Block diagram of series control structure in independent. Based on this fact, a shunt converter in DPFC
Matlab/Simulink can absorb the active power in one frequency and generates
output power in another frequency. Assume a DPFC is
Each converter has its own controller at different frequency placed in a transmission line of a two-bus system, as shown
operation (fundamental and third-harmonic frequency). The in Fig.1.
shunt control structure block diagram is shown in Fig. 5.
While the power supply generates the active power, the shunt
converter has the capability to absorb power in fundamental
frequency of current. Meanwhile, the third harmonic
component is trapped in Y-Δ transformer. Output terminal of
the shunt converter injects the third harmonic current into the
neutral of Δ-Y transformer (Fig. 2). Consequently, the
harmonic current flows through the transmission line. This
harmonic current controls the DC voltage of series
capacitors.

Fig. 6 illustrates how the active power is exchanged between

the shunt and series converters in the DPFC. The

Volume 5 Issue 9, September 2016

www.ijsr.net
Licensed Under Creative Commons Attribution CC BY
Paper ID: ART2016610 DOI: 10.21275/ART2016610 41
 International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR)
ISSN (Online): 2319-7064
Index Copernicus Value (2013): 6.14 | Impact Factor (2015): 6.391
thirdharmonic is selected to exchange the active power in the
DPFC and a high-pass filter is required to make a closed
loop for the harmonic current. The third-harmonic current is
trapped in Δ-winding of transformer. Hence, no need to use
the high-pass filter at the receiving-end of the system. In
other words, by using the third-harmonic, the high-pass filter
can be replaced with a cable connected between Δ-winding
of transformer and ground. This cable routes the harmonic
current to ground.

Figure 7: Simulation model of the DPFC

Figure 6:.Active power exchange between DPFC converters 5. Examining Simulation Results
B. The DPFC Advantages

The DPFC in comparison with UPFC has some advantages,

as follows:
 High Control Capability
The DPFC similar to UPFC, can control all parameters of
transmission network, such as line impedance,
transmission angle, and bus voltage magnitude.
 High Reliability
The series converters redundancy increases the DPFC
reliability during converters operation. It means, if one of
Figure 8: Three-phase load voltage sag waveform
series converters fails, the others can continue to work.
 Low Cost
The single-phase series converters rating are lower than one
three-phase converter. Furthermore, the series converters do
not need any high voltage isolation in transmission line
connecting; single-turn transformers can be used to hang the
series converters. Reference reported a case study to explore
the feasibility of the DPFC, where a UPFS is replaced with a
DPFC in the Korea electric power corporation (KEPCO). To
achieve the same UPFC control capability, the DPFC
construction requires less material.
Figure 9: Mitigation of three-phase load voltage sag with
4. Power Quality Improvement
DPFC
The whole model of system under study is shown in Fig. 7. Fig. 10 depicts the load current swell about 1.1 per- unit,
The system contains a three-phase source connected to a during the fault. After implementation of the DPFC, the load
nonlinear RLC load through parallel transmission lines (Line current swell is removed effectively. The current swell
1 and Line 2) with the same lengths. The DPFC is placed in mitigation for this case can be observed from Fig. 11.
transmission line, which the shunt converter is connected to
the transmission line 2 in parallel through a Y-Δ three-phase
transformer, and series converters is distributed through this
line. The system parameters are listed in appendix TABLE I.
To simulate the dynamic performance, a three-phase fault is
considered near the load. The time duration of the fault is 0.5
seconds (500-1000 millisecond). As shown in Fig. 8, a
significant voltage sag is observable during the fault, without
any compensation. The voltage sag value is about 0.5 per
unit. After adding a DPFC, load voltage sag can be mitigated
effectively, as shown in Fig. 9.
Figure 10: Three-phase load current swell waveform
without DPFC

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Licensed Under Creative Commons Attribution CC BY
Paper ID: ART2016610 DOI: 10.21275/ART2016610 42
 International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR)
ISSN (Online): 2319-7064
Index Copernicus Value (2013): 6.14 | Impact Factor (2015): 6.391
parameters, i.e., line impedance, transmission angle, and bus
voltage magnitude. However, the DPFC offers some
advantages, in comparison with UPFC, such as high control
capability, high reliability, and low cost. The DPFC is
modeled and three control loops, i.e., central controller,
series control, and shunt control are design. The system
under study is a single machine infinite-bus system, with and
without DPFC. To simulate the dynamic performance, a
three-phase fault is considered near the load. It is shown that
the DPFC gives an acceptable performance in power quality
mitigation and power flow control.
Figure 11: Mitigation of three-phase load current swell with
DPFC Appendix
The load voltage harmonic analysis without presence of
Table 1: Simulation System Parameters
DPFC is illustrated in Fig. 12. It can be seen, after DPFC
Parameters Values
implementation in system, the even harmonics is eliminated, Three phase source
the odd harmonics are reduced within acceptable limits, and Rated voltage 230 kV
total harmonic distortion (THD) of load voltage is minimized Rated power/Frequency 100MW/60HZ
from 45.67 to 0.65 percentage (Fig. 13), i.e., the standard X/R 3
THD is less than 5 percent in IEEE standards. Short circuit capacity 11000MW
Transmission line
Resistance 0.012 pu/km
Inductance/ Capacitance reactance 0.12/0.12pu/km
Length of transmission line 100 km
Shunt Converter 3-phase
Nominal power 60 MVAR
DC link capacitor 600 μF
Coupling transformer (shunt)
Nominal power 100 MVA
Rated voltage 230/15 kV
Series Converters
Rated voltage 6 kV
Nominal power 6 MVAR
Three-phase fault
Type ABC-G
Ground resistance 0.01ohm
Figure 12: Total harmonic distortion of load voltage without
DPFC
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Paper ID: ART2016610 DOI: 10.21275/ART2016610 43
 International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR)
ISSN (Online): 2319-7064
Index Copernicus Value (2013): 6.14 | Impact Factor (2015): 6.391
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Licensed Under Creative Commons Attribution CC BY
Paper ID: ART2016610 DOI: 10.21275/ART2016610 44