Operation and Control of Smart Transformer Based Meshed Hybrid Microgrid

Abstract

The excessive use of fossil fuels for power generation in the previous decades has led to various environmental concerns. Moreover, such fuels are also with limited availability. These factors have encouraged engineers and scientists to look for alternate renewal energy sources (RES) for power generation. Various RES like solar photo-voltaic (PV), wind, geothermal, etc., have been used for power generation and injection into the electric grid. However, such changing trends come with their own limitations. RES are generally intermittent in nature with widely varying levels of availability throughout the day and round the year. In addition to that, such sources also need power electronic interface for power injection into the electric grid. These factors give rise to various challenges like voltage variations, faults, harmonics in voltages and currents, islanded operation, complexity of control, etc. Various power electronic equipment such as distribution static compensator (DSTATCOM), dynamic voltage restorer (DVR), unified power quality conditioner (UPQC), static transfer switch, static current limiter, etc., are used in the electric grid to address such challenges.