Energy Recycling Three-Phase Experimental Setup for Power Flow Control Devices

Power electronics grid integrated devices such as Flexible Alternating Current Transmission Systems FACTS and Custom Power devices are a very active research field. In the cases that research must be supported by experimental results, a three phase programmable voltage source and a three-phase programmable electronic load may be used to validate the device under test, but those equipment are relatively expensive for most laboratories and many laboratories in Latin-American do not have that equipment. If a laboratory has only the programmable voltage source, non-energy-recycling experiments may be performed with a passive load, with the respective cost and environmental sacrifice. This paper presents a design and a laboratory implementation of a three-phase energy recycling test bench for power flow experiments, the design features low cost and can be built with equipment available in most laboratories.