2014 International Conference on Control, Instrumentation, Communication and Computational Technologies (ICCICCT)
HYBRID MODULATION BASED STATCOM
WITH AN EXTERNAL PHOTOVOLTAIC
SOURCE
Rahul V G
PG Scholar: Dept. of E&I
Noorul Islam College of engineering
Kumara coil, India
rvgchempoor@gmail.com
Abstract— This paper presents a hybrid modulation based
multilevel static synchronous compensator (STATCOM)
voltage control method. A multilevel STATCOM is a
combination of high voltage converter and low voltage
converter with an energy source .STATCOM use either a
battery or storage element as the energy bank. Most
probably STATCOM consists of capacitors as reactive
power supplying or reactive power absorbing element.
During the operation of STATCOM, the capacitor voltage
may vary from its value, there the importance of this
work. A new control strategy is introduced in this paper in
focus on the capacitor voltage. An experimental model is
developed by using MATLAB SIMULINK block and the
result shows that the STATCOM along with the new
control technique perform satisfactorily.
Keywords— static synchronous compensator, hybrid
modulation ,cascaded multilevel converter, cascade H-bridge
I. INTRODUCTION
Reactive power is an important criterion for every electrical
stability analysis. Voltage stability problems arise where
reactive power control is inadequate. The application of power
electronics makes the electrical transmission system more
reliable and controllable. The Static Synchronous
Compensator (STATCOM) is coming under FACTS family.
The working of STATCOM is based on a voltage-sourced
converter. STATCOM along with voltage source converter
regulates system voltage by absorbing or generating reactive
power [2]. There are various techniques to produce a better
sinusoidal waveform by increasing the number of output
voltage levels with minimum number of components. Those
approaches have been published in the literature [4]-[5].These
topologies are very effective
The basic switching technique of every voltage
source converter is PWM, but a new switching technique was
proposed in the literature [6], known as hybrid modulation.
There are various techniques for hybrid modulation .These
techniques produce better output than the conventional but
carry a problem of voltage control. The voltage imbalance in a
978-1-4799-4190-2/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE
Dr.Glan Devadhas
HOD: Dept. of E&I
Noorul Islam College of engineering
Kumara coil, India
glandeva@gmail.com
STATCOM is mainly due to the tolerance of passive
components, switching loss, resolution issues in the control
side etc. Cascaded H-bridge STATCOM has merits in point of
switching losses, output harmonics, and the number of circuit
components, but each cell has isolated DC capacitors. It
creates balancing problem of capacitor voltage. So voltage
control methods are essential. One common method for
voltage control is using zero sequence voltage and negative
sequence current[7],but the response time is more than the
conventional. In electrical distribution network there is
balanced condition and unbalanced condition. Literature [8]
deals with the control strategy for maintaining the capacitor
voltage of cascade converter during unbalanced load
condition. In [9] a reactive power control method based on
DC voltage is proposed but this paper is purely based on
steady state condition and it only account the individual
capacitor voltage. Some modified control techniques based on
grid current and voltage were in [10] and [11]. The voltage in
the capacitor is a fluctuating quantity, so reliability of the
system is less. An additional backup source along with the
capacitor improves the reliability of the system. Non
renewable energy sources are good option as a backup energy
source. The detailed description of photovoltaic array in
simulation studies is given in [12].
In this paper the author choose a 100v 3kva
STATCOM for study. The control strategy proposed in this
paper is based on DC voltage and current. It improves the
STATCOM output voltage and maintains the capacitor voltage
in every condition. Section II presents the design of the
STATCOM. Section III carries out the design of controllers
and section IV gives the experimental result. Section V
presents the conclusion.
II. DESIGN OF A 100V 3KVA STATCOM WITH
PHOTO VOLTAIC CELL
A. STATCOM design
The modeling of the STATCOM, is reviewed in the
lines below. The modeling is done with the following
assumptions:
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There are six voltage sensors associated to the capacitor in

1) All switches in the system are ideal each cell for sampling the capacitor voltage in every instant
2) The source voltages are balanced for controlling . There is also an inductor connected to each
3) Rs represents the converter losses and the losses of the cluster which eliminates the switching ripples due to high
coupling inductor s R voltage converter operation.
4) The harmonic contents during the switching operation are
negligible. Cascade number:
Ls Rs Lac
AC
Cascade number is one of the most important design
parameters for the design of STATCOM. This design criteria
AC
is based on the blocking voltage of the IGBTs being used in
AC
the STATCOM. The 1.7-kV IGBTs are now commonly
100V,50
available. The dc mean voltage should be designed to be
Hz
CELL W1
around 1000 V so that the ac root mean square (rms) voltage
CELL U1 CELL V1
of each H-bridge converter should be around 625 V. This
gives the cascade number N as
N =3000/√3
Therefore, the cascade number can be assigned as N = 2.
CELL U2 CELL V2 CELL W2

Figure 1 : STATCOM model
Fig 1 shows the configuration of a 100 V 3Kva STATCOM.
This STATCOM arrangement is based on hybrid modulation
technique. In this arrangement Each phase consist of a high
voltage converter and a low voltage converter. Each cell is
with a capacitor of 9400μf.Table 1 gives an idea about circuit
parameters.
B. PV cell
Solar energy is one of the most promising energy source. It
has numerous advantages than other energy source such as it is
clean, is inexhaustible and environment friendly. In this
context, photovoltaic (PV) power generation has an important
role. PV cell convert solar energy to electrical energy. One of
the main drawback of solar cell is its output current is very low.
A boost circuit in association with solar cell solves this
problem. Figure 2 shows the equivalent circuit of a PV cell. A
solar cell consists of mainly a current source, two exponential
diodes and a resistor.
Rp

NOMINAL LINE-LINE RMS VOLTAGE Vsab, Vsbc, Vsca 100V

AC Inductor Lac 6mH

Current source D1 D2
Rs

Power rating P 3KVA

Starting resistor R 51Ω

Background inductance Ls 0.3mH

Figure 2: Equivalent circuit of a PV cell

DC Capacitor C 9100µf As per Kirchhoff’s current law

I  I source  I D 1  I D 2  I RS
Switching frequency for cell U1,V1 and W1 --- 50Hz

Switching frequency for cell U2,V2 and W2
I  I ph
 I s ((exp( V  IR s ) / NV s )  (V  IR s ) ) / R p In
5000Hz
this paper the author choose a W solar cell for study. Figure 3
shows the SIMULINK model of a solar cell and table 2 shows
the specification of the solar cell used in this paper.

Table 1: Circuit parameters

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 2014 International Conference on Control, Instrumentation, Communication and Computational Technologies (ICCICCT)

Figure 3 : Solar cell model

Parameter specification
Figure 4 : Boost converter
Open circuit voltage 0.5 V
III. DESIGN OF CONTROLLER
Short circuit current 6000 mA
STATCOM is a compensating device. It supply reactive
power to the grid when grid require reactive power and absorb
Energy gap 1.11 eV
reactive power from the grid when grid have enough reactive
power. A control strategy is proposed in [1].This strategy
Temperature 3 doesn’t ensure the reliability of the system. During the
exponent for Is operation there is a chance of variation of capacitor voltage
due to capacitor damage, there the importance of a backup
source. A non renewable energy source is used here as a
Temperature 0
exponent for Rs
backup source. Its action comes in active mode when
capacitor voltage goes below a value. It is necessary to find
out a coordination control between STATCOM and the
Fixed Temperature 250C backup source. For simplicity solar system is used here as a
backup source. Figure 4 shows the block diagram of the
control algorithm proposed in this paper.
Irradiance Ramp up-down
irradiance(200W/m2
to 1000 W/m2) The whole control algorithm consists of mainly two parts,
Table 2: solar cell parameters namely capacitor voltage control and solar cell control.
Capacitor voltage control is subdivided into mainly four parts,
decoupled current control, overall voltage control, clustered
C. Boost converter balancing control and individual voltage control. These
The output from a PV cell is of very low current. It is very control algorithms are in [1].Figure 4 shows the block
essential to increase that current level for applications. Boost diagram of capacitor voltage control. Clustered balancing
converter increase the current level to an above value than the control method maintain the total voltage of a cluster,
previous. PV cell usually produce output efficiently at a Individual voltage control maintain the voltage of every
particular unique point known as maximum power individual capacitor, Overall voltage control maintain sum of
point(MPPT). At MPPT voltage and current from the solar all capacitor voltages to a value and decoupled current control
cell is maximum, therefore a separate control algorithm is generates command signal to generate gate pulses based on
required for finding maximum power point. This control source and load current. Figure 6 shows the block diagram of
algorithm drive the thyristor used in the boost converter capacitor voltage control.
.Figure 4 shows the SIMULINK block of a boost converter
with solar cell.

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 2014 International Conference on Control, Instrumentation, Communication and Computational Technologies (ICCICCT)

CONTROL

CAPACITOR VOLTAGE
PV CELL CONTROL
CONTROL

1.CURRENT CONTROL

Figure 7: PV cell controller

IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
2.VOLTAGE CONTROL
Figure 8 shows the STATCOM output voltage. From figure it
Figure 5: Block diagram of the total control scheme is clear that a nine level voltage is produced from the
STATCOM.

CLUSTERED
ref1 BALANCING
CNTROL

First phase Command G

Vabc A
T
.
. E
Iabc
DECOUPLED CURRENT Second phase Command INDIVIDUAL VOLTAGE
.
.
P
CONTROL CONTROL . U
.
Vlabc . L
. S
Third phase Command E
Ilabc s

OVERALL
ref2 VOLTAGE
CONTROL

Figure 8:STATCOM output voltage

Figure 6: Capacitor voltage control
The operation of PV cell is not requires in all times. It comes
in active stage when individual capacitor voltage goes below a
particular value. The controller continuously sample the
capacitor voltage and generate a gate pulse for the switch if
capacitor voltage goes below a particular value. Figure 6
shows the SIMULINK model of the above concept.
Figure 9 shows the capacitor voltages of high voltage and low
voltage converter during its operation. It shows that the
voltage of both high voltage and low voltage converter is at a
particular value all during its operation and PV cell is active
when the capacitor voltage is below a particular limit.
Figure 10 shows the gate pulses to the PV cell switch during
its operation. It shows that PV cell output is available only
when the capacitor voltage goes below a particular value.

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 2014 International Conference on Control, Instrumentation, Communication and Computational Technologies (ICCICCT)
Figure 9: Capacitor voltage of A. high voltage converter,
B. low voltage converter
Figure 10 shows the gate pulses to the PV cell switch during
its operation. It shows that PV cell output is available only
when the capacitor voltage goes below a particular value.
Figure 10: Solar cell enabling signal
Figure 11 shows the PV cell power output and output from
boost converter. It is clear from the result that boost converter
improves the output from the solar cell.
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Figure 11: A.PV cell output current, B .Output current from
boost converter, C. Voltage across boost converter(100Ω
resistor)
V. CONCLUSION
This paper presents a new control method to maintain the
STATCOM DC link voltage to a minimum value. The
additional PV cell acts as a backup to the STATCOM DC link
voltage source. It serves as a source to the STATCOM DC
link capacitor when the capacitor voltage is below a particular
limit. This control method along with STATCOM improves
the output waveform quality and improves the reliability of the
system.
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