Summary: | Problems related to power quality, which in the last years were responsible only for small losses in low-voltage distribution systems, are now causing damage to power apparatuses and financial losses also in medium-voltage systems. The necessity of a better quality of power supply encourages the development of new specific custom power devices directly connected in medium-voltage distribution systems. It is well know that the multilevel converters are capable of being installed directly in the medium voltage, and presents several advantages when compared with conventional two-level converters. Some topologies, like the asymmetric cascaded multilevel converter, presents difficulties in regulating the voltages of all isolated dc-link capacitors. In this context, this article presents an asymmetric nineteen-level D–STATCOM (Distribution Static Synchronous Compensator) with a reactive power and dc-link regulation control loops for generic cascaded multilevel converters in order to improve the power quality in medium-voltage distribution systems. The performance of the proposed control method for a multilevel D–STATCOM is presented and evaluated in a downscaled prototype.
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