Mitigation of power quality problem in underground mine using different control strategies

Electrical power plays an important role in all organizations, especially in the mining business. Without it, it would be hard or about outlandish for mineworkers to carry out their employment. Generally mining industries are located away from load centers or remote areas or rough terrain areas where the voltage variations are high or unpredictable. Mining industry consumes huge power as they are having large machinery such as crushers, continuous miners, mining shovels etc. are sensitive to voltage fluctuations. So they are targeted by electricity board. As we go deeper in the mines the value of voltages goes on reducing and it becomes critical. This paper describes the modeling and implementation of D-STATCOM (Distribution Static Compensator) using different controllers such as proportional integral control and hysteresis voltage control to improve power quality in underground mining. In this paper PI (Proportional Integral) controller and Hysteresis controller is proposed to improve power quality in underground mining which is designed in MATLAB/ SIMULINK. The Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) is compared to the two controllers.