Experimental Validation of the DSTATCOM Based on SiC-MOSFET Multilevel Converter for Reactive Power Compensation

• Main Authors: Raúl Gregor, Julio Pacher, Alfredo Renault, Leonardo Comparatore, Jorge Rodas
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: International Institute of Informatics and Cybernetics 2020-10-01
• Series: Journal of Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics
• Subjects: active power filter; cascaded h-bridge multilevel converter; reactive power compensation; predictive control
• Online Access: http://www.iiisci.org/Journal/CV$/sci/pdfs/SA220QF20.pdf

Power quality problems are associated, among other things, with the reactive power generated at the AC side in distribution systems. In this regard, the three-phase distribution static compensator is becoming a viable alternative in order to achieve reactive power compensation or in other words to obtain a unity power factor. This paper introduces the experimental validation of the distribution static compensator based on a 7-level cascade H-Bridge converter. The experimental test bench is based on the silicon carbide metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor devices. The results are obtained by using a fixed switching frequency model-based predictive controller based on a pulse-width modulation strategy. The proposed design is implemented to mitigate power quality issues induced by reactive load and experimental results are provided to show the performance of the proposed controller.