Design and Implementation of a 11-Level Inverter with FACTS capability for power distribution systems

Abstract

The Modern world runs on naturally obtained combustible resources. They are easy to use but are depleted quickly. Thus the
use of renewable resources is increasing in our daily lives. The main drawback for these resources is that they are expensive. Their
production plants have high initial cost and large transmission costs. This project relates to one such renewable source and its
transmission i.e. wind energy. Wind energy is harnessed with the help of turbines. The turbines are used to run generators to produce
electrical power. The produced electrical power is then transmitted via electrical transmission lines. Wind energy cannot be used
commercially in big cities as the plant output is low compared to other plants. They are mainly used to supply power in villages. Thus
there is a need to decrease the transmission cost of the line. The lines used to transmit power at high power factor use synchronous
compensators or other similar FACTS devices. The idea of the project is to control the power factor without the installation of FACTS
devices. The output of the turbine-generator combination is a low frequency ac output. In order to supply the said output in a
transmission line a wind energy inverter is used. The wind energy inverter changes the low frequency output to a suitable input
frequency of the transmission line. Now if the wind energy inverter can also change the power factor of the line, then extra FACTS
devices will not be required for the line. This is the purpose of the proposed inverter i.e. “to make the wind energy inverter also
change the power factor of the line” so as to do away with the installation of FACTS devices and thereby decreasing the overall cost
of the distribution system. This ensures easy injection of renewable power in our daily life.