AC/DC control for thyristor-controlled reactors for reactive power compensation

This paper presents a new phase-control method for thyristor-controlled reactors to realise reactive power compensation. Instead of using the conventional two switch AC controller, an AC/DC full-wave bridge can be utilized. This allows the inductor current to be unidirectional, resulting in reduced core losses. The AC/DC control, with a relatively small inductance, results in reduced inductor size and losses. Also, the small inductance allows a nearly sinusoidal current to flow in the inductor, which results in reduced AC line current harmonic distortion. The paper includes experimental comparisons between the proposed and the conventional compensators