Reactive Power Compensation using a 11 Level Inverter

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 costly. Their
production plants have high initial capital and large transmission and distribution costs. The following paper 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.