Particle Swarm Optimization based Distribution Static Compensator for load compensation

Now-a-days, in distribution system, power quality problems are becoming the most prominent issues because of the presence of unbalanced and nonlinear loads. In this paper(Distribution Static Compensator) DSTATCOM, which is one of the popular custom power device, is used as compensator for mitigating the power quality (PQ) issues. It is always connected in shunt with the system. The DSTATCOM comprises of the voltage source inverter(VSI) which is used to inject the compensating currents. Here, split capacitor based VSI topology is applied. Taking into account the issue of capacitor unbalance split VSI topology the dc voltage is maintained by tuning Proportional Integral (PI) controller using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) technique, which is found to be providing superior performance in terms of source currents, THD, dc link voltage ripples etc. An extensive digital simulation has been carried out to evaluate the compensator performance using MATLAB environment.