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Voltage-sourced converter (VSC)-based static synchronous compensators (STATCOMs) are used for voltage regulation in transmission and distribution systems. Unlike PWM-controlled STATCOMs, angle-controlled STATCOMs are switched at line frequency to limit the system losses. In recent years, angle-controlled STATCOMs have been deployed by utilities for the purpose of transmission system voltage regulation, voltage stability improvement, and increasing operational functionality. Despite the superior feature on voltage waveform quality and efficiency, the practical angle-controlled STATCOMs suffer from the over-current (and trips) and possible saturation of the interfacing transformers caused by negative sequence current during unbalanced conditions and faults in the utility. This paper specifically proposes a control structure to improve the angle-controlled STATCOMs performance under unbalanced conditions and faults. The main improvement is a substantial decrease in the negative sequence current and dc-link voltage oscillations under power system faults by the proposed control. This eliminates the need to redesign the STACOM power components to operate under fault current and dc-link voltage oscillations. The proposed control structure is designed based on adding appropriate oscillations to the conventional angle-controller output that is the control angle by which the VSC voltage vector leads/lags the line voltage vector. Since this control structure uses two angles for controlling the VSC output voltage, it is called dual angle control (DAC). PSCAD/EMTDC and experimental results verify the validity of the proposed control structure under unbalanced system conditions and faults. The experiments were conducted on a transient network analyzer, a unique hardware-based flexible ac transmission system simulator which was designed to study system faults and transients for a 2 × 100 MVA STATCOM field installation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dynamic regulation models for voltage-sourced converter (VSC) based flexible ac transmission system (FACTS) controllers are described in this paper. The dynamic models can then be used to analyze these FACTS controller's capability to improve the capability of a power transfer path. The contributions of this paper include showing that the benefits of FACTS controllers are proportional to the MVA ratings and the benefits of multiple FACTS controllers are cumulative. Furthermore, the coupling of dc buses allowing active power circulation between multiple VSC FACTS controllers may offer additional improvement in transfer capability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flexible ac Transmission Systems (FACTS) play an important role in improving the transfer capability and stability of a power system. In the application of voltage-sourced converter (VSC)-based FACTS controllers, it is important to study how a VSC impacts the flows in a power system. In this paper, we investigate this flow control problem using two sensitivity approaches, one using an injected voltage source formulation and the other an equivalent impedance formulation. The applications of sensitivity analysis for line active power redispatch and for new series VSC siting in a 1673-bus system are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]