Application of a Capacitor-Less D-STATCOM for Power Quality Enhancement in a Typical Telecom Data Center

Power quality generally refers to the adequacy of the power system’s voltage, current, and frequency. Typically, any related distortion can reflect several forms of negative impacts that might affect the system equipment operation. Power electronics-based apparatus within telecommunication data center facilities are generating such harmonic distortion causing well-known several power quality issues. Furthermore, such harmonics can also propagate back to the electrical grid increasing the risk of sensitive equipment failure and maloperation. In this paper, real measurement results of current and voltage waveforms along with their total harmonic distortion (THD%) investigations of typical telecom data centers are presented. In addition, a capacitor-less distribution static synchronous compensator (D-STATCOM) is proposed to improve the degraded levels of power quality indices. Simulation results using MATLAB/Simulink are presented in this paper confirming the effectiveness of the capacitor-less D-STATCOM device in providing dynamic compensation regarding power factor correction and harmonic distortion reduction.