Synergistic control and cooperative operation of distributed harmonic and reactive compensators

The paper describes an approach to cooperative operation of a system of distributed harmonic and reactive compensators acting in the same network. The goal is to optimize the network operation at a given port by fully exploiting the capability of the various compensation units. The background for cooperative operation lays on the conservation of instantaneous complex power, a quantity which envelopes power and energy information of electrical networks and keeps validity even in presence of non-sinusoidal voltage supply and distorting loads. Based on this principle, a control approach is developed which applies to static reactive compensators (SVC) as well as to active power filters (APF). In particular, the high-power capability of SVC is combined with the fast response of APF to achieve full compensation of reactive power and harmonic currents. Single-phase and three-phase simulations demonstrate the capability of the proposed compensation approach.