Performance Comparison of STATCOM and BESS for Restoring Voltage Under Post Fault Scenario

In recent years, high penetration of distributed generation (DG) units into distribution network has become greater concern for the power system operators. Due to intermittent nature of generation, large scale DG integration may eventually lead to voltage instability. Grid standards limit the voltage control capabilities of DG units which leads to higher demand of reactive power support. This can be achieved by installation of flexible AC transmission system (FACTS) devices such as static synchronous compensator (STATCOM). In islanded microgrids, voltage support can also be obtained by energy storage systems such as battery energy storage system (BESS). In this paper, an STATCOM has been compared with a BESS in term of post-fault voltage recovery. IEEE 43 bus industrial test system in islanded condition has been used for this study. Results show that, in comparison to STATCOM, BESS demands lower rating to achieve grid compatible recovery of system voltages.