An Improved Negative-Sequence Current Compensation Method for Star-Connected CHB STATCOM

Negative-sequence current is required to be intentionally injected to support the power grid or compensate the imbalanced load in asymmetrical faults utilizing STATCOM. However, the extreme compensation range of negative-sequence current injection becomes complicated when grid voltage becomes asymmetrical. This article presents a novel off-line strategy for negative-sequence current compensation under two typical kinds of asymmetrical grid faults — single-phase voltage drop and double-phase voltage drop, with the following two benefits simultaneously: maximizing negative current compensation capacity; avoiding iterations and reducing computation burdens. In this paper, the mechanism of DC voltage balancing among three phases in STATCOM is analyzed and a new identification method of negative-sequence current compensation range is explored out. To simplify the calculation, this paper takes the ratio of negative-sequence reactive (Iq-) and active (Id-) current as a variable (s). In this way, the relationship between the extreme compensation range, asymmetrical voltage sag depth of power grid h is drawn with MATLAB. Different from the previous iterative method, the off-line identification method is applied to avoid huge iterations. By fitting the curve, the precise ranges of negative-sequence current compensation under different asymmetrical grid faults are approximated as simple polynomials, thus significantly reducing the computation burdens. Simulation and experimental results verify the practicability of the proposed compensation method.