Analysis of an iUPQC Operating as Interface for Microgrids with Power Angle Control

Abstract

Abstract: The dual unified power quality conditioner (iUPQC) is an active filter that has been studied to be applied as utility interface in microgrid applications. It regulates the voltage of the microgrid side and controls the power flow between the grid and microgrid side. Besides that, ancillary functions to grid side have been proposed to extend its power quality compensation. This paper presents a detailed analytical and numerical analysis of the power flow of an iUPQC, which operates as an utility interface in microgrid applications with the extended function of STATCOM. It can compensate not only the disturbances at the load or microgrid side but also provides an RMS voltage regulation at the Point of Common Coupling (PCC), thus, providing reactive power to the grid. Moreover, the iUPQC power flow was evaluated considering the implementation of the power angle control (PAC), a technique used to share and equalize the power processed by each converter allowing the optimization of this conditioner. In addition, a test setup to validate this analysis was proposed and built. Therefore, this study can support the understanding of the power flow of the iUPQC operating as STATCOM, to share and optimize the available power in the iUPQC converters using PAC.