Mixed topology for flicker mitigation

Flicker, caused by large fluctuating loads as arc furnace, is one of the power quality problems that include interruptions, voltage sags and dips, harmonics. The state of the art technology to reduce flicker is shunt compensation using static Var compensator (SVC) with thyristors. However, this kind of technology has an intrinsic limited flicker mitigation capability, due to the limited bandwidth of the SVC. STATCOM, which has a higher bandwidth than the SVC, can be used as shunt compensation device. However due to the high cost of such device, hybrid solutions including classical SVC structure associated with small STATCOM device seems to be the best solution for power quality improvement at reasonable costs. This paper presents the benefits of such an association.