Design of Battery Storage fed Asymmetrical Multilevel Converter for Enhanced Statcom Applications

The dominance of renewable power in the existing electrical grid causes an improper balance between load and demand. Also, the stability of voltage/frequency of the respective networks may get altered due to fluctuating nature of renewable power. For handling these contingencies, a system which has the features of a Statcom and the ability to support the active power has to be employed. They can be termed ‘Statcom with Storage unit (SSU)’. Thus, this paper presents a configuration for SSU applications formed by an Asymmetrical Multilevel Converter (AsMC) with an auxiliary bridge. With the presence of an auxiliary bridge, the harmonic profile of the converter has improved with increased levels. The detailed working principle of the configuration has been elaborated in this paper. Also, the needful control mechanisms to obtain the needful real and reactive powers from configuration has been established. The efficacy of the proposed AsMC for SSU applications has been validated in the PSCAD platform and from the simulation results it has been observed that the proposed configuration is competent enough for the SSU applications.