Microcontroller-based facts devices implementation

Abstract

In power systems, the case of voltage control, power factor improvement and reactive power management cannot be over-emphasized. In developing countries such as Nigeria, the electricity power system is characterized by operational constraints which are predominantly poor power quality, voltage fluctuations and increased power losses among others. Furthermore, these frequent system disturbances contribute to the unreliability of such power system. This paper looks at the thyristor-switched capacitor- thyristor-controlled reactor (TSC-TCR), static volt-ampere-reactive controller (SVC), a flexible alternating current transmission system (FACTS) device as a solution to mitigate the thermal and voltage problems associated with the Nigerian network. A microcontroller-based SVC prototype was designed in Proteus software and implemented in a laboratory environment using locally available discrete electronic components for load power factor correction based on distributed reactive power control. The microcontroller was in charge of carrying out the logic control scheme for the two branches and computing the load displacement power factor (PFD). The SVC was found to improve the PFD by 44.78% under inductive loading where the power factor increased significantly from 0.67 to 0.97.