An Adaptive D-FACTS for Power Quality Enhancement in an Isolated Microgrid

Technologies of microgrids (MGs) help power grid evolve into one that is more efficient, less polluting, reduced losses, and more flexible to provide energy consumers' want and need. Because of the nature of various renewable energy sources (RESs) integrated into the MGs such as variability and inability to accurately predict and control, different technical problems are created. Power quality is one of the most important issues to be addressed, especially harmonic distortion and voltage stabilization. Many devices have been proposed to improve these two aspects that may result from loads nonlinearity and sources uncertainty. In this study, an adaptive switched filter compensator (ASFC) with developed proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller is proposed to improve the overall dynamic performance of the MGs. The PID's controller gains are optimally tuned via the application of grasshopper's optimization algorithm (GOA) to act adaptively with self-tuning as the operating conditions may subject to change during MG operation. Different case studies are proposed to reveal the robustness of the presented ASFC on harmonic mitigation, dynamic voltage stabilization, reactive power compensation and power factor improvement considering the features of RESs such as variations of wind speed, solar PV irradiation and temporary fault conditions. A distribution synchronous static compensator (D-STATCOM), as one of the most popular D-FACTS, with optimal tuned PID controller by using the GOA is also proposed. To validate both the proposed ASFC topology and the modified D-STATCOM, comparative studies including what has been published in literature are examined by using MATLAB/Simulink platform. The results advocate the effectiveness, robustness and latency of the proposed devices.