Asymmetric multilevel STATCOM to compensate reactive power and current harmonics

A comprehensive solution to simultaneously compensate both reactive power and currents harmonics is presented for a multilevel STATic COMpensator (STATCOM). The proposed approach includes asymmetric power cells that independently compensate reactive power at fundamental frequency and cancel out the current harmonics coming from a nonlinear load. The presented analysis demonstrates that, under certain conditions, the modules aimed for harmonic cancellation require lower power than the modules that compensate the fundamental power factor. Thus, each module can be implemented with specialized power valves in order to improve the overall system performance. Simulated preliminary results confirm the correctness of the proposed approach.