Design Study of a Converter Interface Interconnecting Energy Storage With the DC Link of a StatCom

Voltage-source converters (VSC) have been widely utilized to provide instantaneous reactive power support to power systems, an application referred to as static synchronous compensator (StatCom). The integration of energy storage (ES) into a StatCom makes it possible for the StatCom to provide a certain amount of active power as well as reactive power support. The possible benefit of the additional active power of a StatCom can be power oscillation damping capability, mitigation of phase-jump-related disturbances, etc. Direct connection of an ES device to the dc link of the VSC incurs an unnecessarily high-voltage rating of the VSC due to the considerable voltage swing associated with the ES device. Dual thyristor converter topology has been proposed as the interface between the ES and the dc link of the VSC. In this paper, a cost estimation for systems with the proposed interface topology is presented regarding three types of ES: capacitors, supercapacitors, and batteries. The study shows potential cost savings with utilization of the proposed interface topology. In addition, a cost comparison between different types of ES is presented, providing a guideline for the choice of ES in these kinds of applications.