FACTS Providing Grid Services: Applications and Testing

Abstract

The role of flexible alternating current transmission systems (FACTSs) in the provision of grid services is becoming increasingly important, due to the massive integration of intermittent renewable energy sources, energy storage systems, and the decommissioning of thermal plants. A comprehensive literature review of grid services offered by FACTS is performed, focusing on the different grid services that they can provide, such as power flow control, reactive power control, voltage control, power quality improvement, harmonic mitigation, improvement of transient stability, and damping of inter-area and intra-area oscillations. These grid services need to be realistically and economically validated in suitable testing environments. A review of relevant standards, guides, and the literature is performed, which covers the entire range from functional specification and factory testing up to the field testing of FACTS. Advanced industry practices, such as controller hardware in the loop (CHIL) testing of FACTS controllers by the manufacturer, and recent trends, such as CHIL testing of replica controllers by the owner, are underlined. Limitations of conventional testing and CHIL testing are explained and the use of power hardware in the loop (PHIL) simulation for FACTS testing is discussed. CHIL and scaled-down PHIL tests on a transmission static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) are performed and a comparison of the results is presented.

Allocation of FACTS Devices Using a Probabilistic Multi-Objective Approach Incorporating Various Sources of Uncertainty and Dynamic Line Rating

“…FACTS controller can be installed to improve electric network performance [6]. Moreover, these devices can be used to mitigate the deleterious effects of wind power systems on the electric network, and thus, can be used to increase their penetration level [7].…”

“…The capability of FACTS controller in improving the network performance depends mostly on their sizes and locations [8]. Therefore, the proper installation of a FACTS controller at different locations in the network will give different results in terms of network loadability increase [9], loss reduction [6,10], static voltage stability enhancement [11], voltage profile improvement [12], available transfer capability improvement [13] and total generation fuel cost reduction [14] and Congestion management [15]. From the literature survey, it is found that many researchers have suggested different methods to find optimum allocations of FACTS controller for optimization of one or two objectives with or without the presence of renewable energy.…”

Control of a Modular Multilevel Matrix Converter for Unified Power Flow Controller Applications

“…The increase of power quality problems might have an adverse impact on steady state and dynamic stability, limited transmission capacity, and congestion of lines. Therefore, Flexible Alternating Current Transmission Systems (FACTS) have been widely used to improve power grid dynamic and static behavior, providing greater operating flexibility and better utilization [1].…”

Modeling and Control of a Novel Hybrid Power Quality Compensation System for 25-kV Electrified Railway

“…FACTS technology has increasingly drawn wide attention regarding the power quality of the government [6,7]. The power flow controller (PFC) scheme has been adopted to the TPSS [8], for example, by way of the railway static power conditioner (RPC) and co-phase TPSS.…”