Supercapacitor E-STATCOM for Power System Performance Enhancement

E-STATCOMs are static compensator devices incorporated with energy storage devices. In this paper, a supercapacitor energy storage system (SCESS) has been interfaced with a static compensator (STATCOM) for transient control of a power system. While STATCOM is known to improve the reactive power unbalance following a contingency, a STATCOM SCESS system can affect both real and reactive power needs. Performance of a single machine infinite bus system has been considered as a test case. It has been observed that a simple STATCOM SCESS can stabilize an unstable system. Additionally, supplementary PI controllers in both voltage magnitude and phase angle loops can provide extra damping to the system. The controllers have been shown to provide very good responses even when the system is subjected to severe three-phase fault conditions.