Damping of Generator Oscillations Using Static VAR Compensators

The design of a novel static VAR compensator for the damping of electromechanical oscillation in a synchronous generator is presented. The proposed compensator, which is made up of a fixed capacitor and a thyristor-controlled inductor, is installed at the generator terminal to provide the required damping without deteriorating the voltage profile under disturbance conditions. In order to have better dynamic performance, a supplementary proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller of which the parameters are determined by eigenvalue assignment is incorporated in the static VAR compensators. The dynamic responses of the synchronous machine subjected to a three-phase fault are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the static VAR compensators. A comparison study of the proposed controller and a PID excitation controller is made with respect to damping enhancement and terminal voltage deviation.