DOI: https://doi.org/10.15368/theses.2011.215
Available at: https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/theses/660
Date of Award
12-2011
Degree Name
MS in Electrical Engineering
Department/Program
Electrical Engineering
Advisor
Taufik
Abstract
Modern electric power utilities are facing a variety of challenges introduced by the increasing complexity of their operation, structure, and consumer loads. One such challenge has been to supply the ever growing demand for reactive power which is essential for grid support. For this reason dynamic VAR technologies are becoming much more important to modern day power systems. A recent dynamic VAR technology known as the Dynamic Capacitor offers full quadrant capacitive VAR control through the combination of AC/AC buck and boost cells. This paper introduces a new topology deemed the “Four-Switch Buck-Boost Dynamic Capacitor” which promises to combine the performance of the AC/AC buck and boost cells into a single power electronic device. This is done in an effort to reduce the required component count and thus reduce the overall device footprint and implementation cost of the Dynamic Capacitor technology. Derivations and analysis will detail the workings of the Four-Switch Buck-Boost Dynamic Capacitor, while simulations in LTSpice and Matlab Simulink will demonstrate the functionality and performance of the proposed topology. The results of this thesis prove the Four-Switch Buck-Boost Dynamic Capacitor to be a feasible shunt reactive compensating device.