With the increasing penetration rate of grid-connected renewable energy generation, the problem of grid voltage excursion becomes an important issue that needs to be solved urgently. As a new type of voltage regulation control method, electric spring (ES) can alleviate the fluctuations of renewable energy output effectively. In this paper, the background and basic principle of the electric spring are introduced firstly. Then, considering the influence of an electric spring on noncritical load voltage, noncritical loads are classified reasonably, and based on the electric spring phasor diagram, the control method to meet the noncritical load voltage constraint is proposed. This control method can meet the requirements of voltage excursions of different kinds of noncritical load, increase the connection capacity of the noncritical load and improve the voltage stabilization capacity of the electric spring. Finally, through the simulation case, the feasibility and validity of electric spring theory and the proposed control method are verified.
The presented paper concerns the issues of communication networks applied to monitoring and control of reactive power compensator for small hydroelectric plants installed in areas distant from urban agglomerations. Ethernet, CAN, Modbus and GPRS transmission protocols has been used. Industrial programmable controller as a data collector has been used also.
The paper presents a concept of a control system for a high-frequency three-phase PWM grid-tied converter (3x400 V / 50 Hz) that performs functions of a 10-kW DC power supply with voltage range of 600÷800 V and of a reactive power compensator. Simulation tests (in PLECS) allowed proper selection of semiconductor switches between fast IGBTs and silicon carbide MOSFETs. As the main criterion minimum amount of power losses in semiconductor devices was adopted. Switching frequency of at least 40 kHz was used with the aim of minimizing size of passive filters (chokes, capacitors) both on the AC side and on the DC side. Simulation results have been confirmed in experimental studies of the PWM converter, the power factor of which (inductive and capacitive) could be regulated in range from 0.7 to 1.0 with THDi of line currents below 5% and energy efficiency of approximately 98.5%. The control system was implemented in Texas Instruments TMS320F28377S microcontroller.