Cascaded multilevel inverter based electric spring for smart grid applications

This paper proposes “Electric Spring” (ES) based on Single Phase three-level Cascaded H-Bridge Inverter to achieve effective demand side management for stabilizing smart grid fed by substantial intermittent renewable energy sources (RES). Considering the most attractive features of multilevel inverter (MLI), an effective structure of Electric Spring is proposed for suppressing voltage fluctuation in power distribution network arising due to RES and maintaining the critical load voltage. Also, the operation of ES in capacitive as well as inductive mode is discussed. Further, the paper describes droop control method for parallel operation of distributed electric spring for stabilization the power grid. An exclusive dynamic performance of the system using electric spring has been tested and demonstrated through detailed MATLAB simulation.