Active reactive-power controller

A novel technique for building reactive power compensators using the switched-capacitor technique is presented. Normally when switched-capacitor are used for reactive power compensation they are operated at the supply frequency; in the proposed technique the capacitors are switched at higher frequencies, typically 800 Hz. The main advantages of this approach is that it provides a stepless variation in reactive power without the generation of harmonics as is the case with the conventional approach. The paper includes the details of theoretical and experimental investigation carried out at Brunel University to assess the new technique