Improved performance of ten-pulse converter based DSTATCOM for flicker mitigation

With the advent of time, the concern of customers over the quality of voltage waveform or to say the quality of electric power, which they receive, is increasing. Modern sophisticated electronic equipments used in industries are quite sensitive to poor voltage quality, which may lead to maloperation or failure of device. These electronic devices use electronic switching devices which can lead to power quality problems. Due to the increase in competition among the electric utilities in a modern deregulated market, customer satisfaction is becoming the top notch priority. Voltage flicker is the one of the many power quality problems which seeks the interest of both the utility and engineers. The source of this problem is voltage fluctuations occurring due to heavy nonlinear loads. This paper presents the detailed analysis of voltage flicker on a designed test system and its mitigation using a DSTATCOM firstly using a conventional six-pulse voltage source converter and then using a ten-pulse converter. Though the performance of ten-pulse converter will be marginally inferior to twelve-pulse converter (which is composed of two, six-pulse converters), but it reduces the amount of circuit switching and circuit complexity. The performance based comparison is also charted out for the system. The results are presented to validate the feasibility of proposed topology. Results obtained using ten-pulse converters DSTATCOM are found to be superior over the six-pulse based DSTATCOM. The simulation tool applied to carry out the said task is MATLAB/SIMULINK power system block set.