1

Fault Current Limiting Dynamic Voltage Restorer

Sruti Pious Chalil Dr. Savier J. S.
M.Tech Scholar Professor, IEEE
College of Engineering College of Engineering
Trivandrum, Kerala Trivandrum, Kerala
India India
E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: savier [email protected]

Abstract—Power quality issues like voltage fluctuation, Sensitive loads such as computers, programmable logic
voltage unbalance etc. have increased due to the rapid pro- controllers (PLC), variable speed drives (VSD), etc. need
liferation of renewable power generation sources and non
linear loads. Also, short-circuit faults continue to be the high quality supplies and for such equipments, it would be
most serious faults affecting grid security and stability. For tremendously advantageous if both voltage compensation
many power system loads, especially for sensitive loads, it and fault current limiting functions are incorporated into
would be of great advantage if both voltage compensation
and fault current limiting functions are provided as part
a single power electronic device[7-9].
of a single power electronic device. In this paper, a con- In this paper, fault current interruption features are in-
ventional DVR has been designed to offer fault current in- corporated into a conventional DVR. This paper presents
terruption features in addition. This paper presents a new a new fault current limiting dynamic voltage restorer
fault current limiting dynamic voltage restorer (FCL-DVR)
concept. The new topology makes use of a crowbar bidirec- (FCL-DVR) concept.Here, a crowbar bidirectional thyris-
tional thyristor switch across the output terminals of the tor switch is placed across the output terminals of the in-
inverter of a conventional DVR. When a short circuit fault verter of a conventional DVR and it is this element that
occurs, the controller will deactivate the DVR inverter and
activate the crowbar thyristor. This inturn inserts the DVR
gives fault current limiting feature to the circuit. Thus, the
filter reactor into the grid thus effectively limiting the fault new topology can operate in two modes: voltage compen-
current.FCL-DVR can thus operate in two modes: voltage sation mode for power quality problems and fault current
compensation mode to compensate for voltage fluctuations limiting mode during faults.
and unbalance and fault current limiting mode to limit cur-
rent in case of faults. The rest of this paper is organized as follows. The FCL-
Index Terms—FCL-DVR, voltage compensation DVR circuit is reviewed in Section II. The different modes
of operation are discussed in Section III. The simulation
results are presented in Section IV, followed by conclusions
I. Introduction in Section V.

P OWER distribution systems, should ideally provide

their customers with an uninterrupted flow of energy
with a smooth sinusoidal voltage at the contracted magni-
II. Fault current limiting DVR
The basic configuration of an FCL-DVR is shown in Fig.
tude level and frequency [3]. However, in practice, power 1. The major point of difference between the FCL-DVR
systems, especially distribution systems, have numerous and a conventional DVR is the three crowbar bidirectional
nonlinear loads, which significantly affect the quality of thyristors which are inserted at the output terminals of the
the power supply. The grid suffers from a lot of prob- inverters. The crowbar bidirectional thyristor inserted on
lems such as voltage sags and swells, unbalance and other each phase will be deactivated or activated depending on
power quality issues. The increased integration of renew- the mode of operation [1]. In the event of a short circuit
able power generation sources in the grid has also aggra- fault, the DVR controller will deactivate the DVR inverter
vated this issue [1]. Both, electric utilities and end users of and activate its crowbar thyristor to insert the DVR filter
electrical power are becoming increasingly concerned about reactor into the grid to effectively limit the fault current.
the quality of electric power. us , uc , uDV R , and ul represent the supply voltage, the
Though there are many different methods to mitigate voltage across the filter capacitor, the injected voltage and
voltage sags and swells, the use of a custom power device the output load voltage respectively. is and il represents
is considered to be the most efficient method [2]. There the supply current and the load current respectively. Zs
are many types of Custom Power devices out of which Dy- and Zl are the equivalent source and load impedance re-
namic Voltage Restorer is a very efficient technology. spectively.
Short circuit faults are the most common and severe kind During normal operation of the grid, the FCL-DVR op-
of faults and it continues to be a problem of concern. A erates in the voltage compensation mode to compensate
fault current limiter (FCL) of any type can be used to limit voltage fluctuations. In this case, the crowbar bidirectional
fault currents in the grid . During the occurence of a short- thyristors are deactivated. In the event of a short circuit
circuit fault, the FCL introduces a high series impedance in fault, the FCL-DVR operates in the fault current limiting
the power loop due to which the fault current is effectively mode. The crowbar bidirectional thyristors are then ac-
limited [6]. tivated to insert the output filter inductor into the main
2

Fig. 3. Single phase equivalent of FCL-DVR - fault current limiting

mode

B. Fault current limiting mode

The single-phase equivalent circuit of FCL-DVR operat-
ing in fault current limiting mode is shown in Fig. 3. If a
short circuit fault occurs, the inverter corresponding to the
faulty phase is deactivated, and the corresponding crowbar
bidirectional thyristor is activated. In this condition, the
reactor L of the filter is inserted into the secondary side of
the series transformer, thus limiting the fault current.
As shown in Fig. 3, in order to eliminate high frequency
ripples the L and C are usually resonant at a high fre-
quency, then n2 ω0 L = ω01C where ω0 is the fundamental
Fig. 1. Circuit diagram of FCL-DVR frequency, and n is usually greater than 10. Compared with
the equivalent impedance of C, the equivalent impedance
of L is very small. So the impact of filter capacitance can
current path which passes through the series transformer. be neglected. The equivalent impedance of the secondary
At the same time, the insulated gate bipolar transistors side of the series transformer is given by
(IGBTs)of the appropriate single phase inverters will be
turned off to completely deactivate the inverters. The short
circuit fault current can be limited by L, the filter induc- π
tance. Therefore, with the same power rating of a conven- Zeq2 = ω0 L ∗ (1)
2π − 2α + sin2α
tional DVR, both voltage compensation and fault current
limiting functions can be provided by the FCL-DVR [1]. where α is the trigger delay angle of the crowbar thyristors.
The equivalent impedance of L on the primary side is
III. Modes of Operation
The FCL-DVR can operate in two operational modes: Zeq = k 2 Zeq2 (2)

A. Voltage compensation mode where k is the ratio of series transformer. When the FCL-
DVR operates in the fault current limiting mode, the sup-
ply current is given by

Us
IsF ≈ IlF ≈ (3)
Zs + Zeq + Zl

From Fig. 3, it can be seen that the short circuit current

Fig. 2. Single phase equivalent of FCL-DVR - voltage compensation can be limited by the output reactor. As Zs and Z1 are
mode usually smaller than Zeq , fault current is mainly limited
by Zeq . The fault current can be limited to the reference
When FCL-DVR is working in the voltage compensation value by selecting the parameters of k and L [1].
mode, the crowbar bidirectional thyristors are deactivated.
The FCL-DVR in this mode can be considered equivalent IV. Control strategy
to a voltage controlled voltage source[1], as shown in Fig. The FCL-DVR can operate in one of the two operation
2. modes according to the grid state. The two main aspects
FAULT CURRENT LIMITING DYNAMIC VOLTAGE RESTORER 3

• The swell is simulated in phases A, B and C from 1.5s

to 1.7s.
• LL fault is simulated from 2.5s to 3.5s.
The simulation results of case 1 are as shown in Fig. 5 to
Fig. 10. The load voltage(without FCL-DVR),gate pulses,
injected voltage, load voltage (with FCL-DVR),load cur-
rent(without FCL-DVR),load current (with FCL-DVR)
are shown in Fig. 5, Fig. 6,Fig. 7, Fig. 8, Fig. 9, Fig. 10
respectively.

Fig. 4. Block Diagram for control of automatic activation of Real

Power loop

that affect the performance of the FCL-DVR are the oper-

ation mode switching strategy and fault current detection
method. Fig. 4 shows the control block diagram to switch
between the two modes of operation of FCL-DVR.
In the control strategy used, the load voltage is contin-
uously monitored. It is then compared with the generated
reference voltage. Whenever a difference is detected, gate
Fig. 5. Load Voltage (without FCL-DVR) - LL fault
pulses are generated according to the difference and given
to a switch.
Also, load current is continuously monitored. It is com-
pared with the threshold value. If the load current is more
than the threshold value, a fault is detected. Control is
given so as to deactivate the inverter and at the same time,
firing pulses are given to turn on the thyristor banks of the
faulty phases. The switching strategy switches between
the two modes of operation. Normally the circuit acts in
the voltage compensation mode. When a fault occurs, it
will switch to the fault current limiting mode.

V. Simulation Results and Discussions

The simulation of the FCL-DVR circuit is done in Mat-
lab/Simulink environment. A three phase system with
RLC load is considered.
Fig. 6. Gate pulses-LL fault
TABLE I
Simulation Parameters

Parameters Value
Injection transformer ratio 1:1
Filter inductance 0.01 H
Filter capacitance 10 uF
Battery voltage 300 V
Series transformer resistance 0.5 ohm
Series transformer inductance 0.063 H

The simulation parameters used are shown in Table.I.

Phases A, B and C are depicted in red, green and blue
colour respectively.The simulation is done cosidering two
different cases which are as follows:
Case 1:
• The sag(50 percent) is simulated in phases A, B and
C from 0.5s to 0.7s. Fig. 7. Injected voltage-LL fault
4

Fig. 8. Load Voltage (with FCL-DVR) - LL Fault Fig. 11. Load Voltage (without FCL-DVR) - LLG Fault - Unbal-
anced case

Fig. 9. Load Current (without FCL-DVR) - LL Fault

Fig. 12. Gate pulses-LLG fault - Unbalanced case

Fig. 10. Load Current (with FCL-DVR) - LL Fault

Fig. 13. Injected voltage-LLLG fault - Unbalanced case

Case :2
The simulation results of case 2 are as shown in
• The sag(50 percent) is simulated in phase A alone from Fig. 11 to Fig. 16. The load voltage(without FCL-
0.5s to 0.7s. DVR),gate pulses, injected voltage, load voltage (with
• The swell is simulated in phase A alone from 1.5s to FCL-DVR),load current(without FCL-DVR),load current
1.7s. (with FCL-DVR) are shown in Fig. 11, Fig. 12,Fig. 13,
• LLG fault is simulated from 2.5s to 3.5s. Fig. 14, Fig. 15, Fig. 16 respectively.
FAULT CURRENT LIMITING DYNAMIC VOLTAGE RESTORER 5

VI. Conclusion
This paper tries to present a DVR which has fault cur-
rent limiting properties. It deals with both voltage fluc-
tuations and short current faults. The new topology uses
a crowbar bidirectional thyristor switch across the output
terminals of a conventional back-to-back DVR. With the
crowbar bidirectional thyristor across the output terminal
of the inverter, the proposed FCL-DVR can compensate
voltage fluctuation and limit fault current.
The working of FCL-DVR is simulated in Mat-
lab/Simulink environment and its associated control strat-
egy is designed. The simulation results clearly depict that
the power quality issues are compensated and the fault cur-
Fig. 14. Load Voltage (with FCL-DVR) - LLG Fault - Unbalanced rent, during various faults, are limited to a good extent.
case
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Fig. 16. Load Current (with FCL-DVR) - LLG Fault - Unbalanced

case

Fig. 8 and Fig. 14 shows that the sag and swell are
compensated and a constant load voltage is obtained. Also,
Fig. 10 and Fig. 16 shows that the LL and LLG fault
currents are limited to a good extent, in this case half.The
amount of limiting depends on the value of inductor.
shows hat the sag and swell are compensated and a con-
stant load voltage is obtained. Also, Fig. shows that the
fault current is limited to a good extent.