Modelling and control of a cascade-multilevel converter-based STATCOM for electric arc furnace flicker mitigation

As an industrial customer of the utility, electrical arc furnace (EAF) is the major flicker source that degrades the grid power quality. As a possible solution, STATCOMs with high bandwidth can be used. In this paper, the normalized model of a CMC-based STATCOM and an EAF model are introduced, and then a DQ-model based control strategy is proposed for flicker mitigation. Case studies are conducted for STATCOM applying to a 40 MVA EAF arc furnace. Simulation results verify the controllers´ stability and performance. A transient network analyzer (TNA) is developed to experimentally test the developed controller.