Operation and Control of Smart Transformer for Improving Performance of Medium Voltage Power Distribution System

Smart transformer (ST) is a power electronic based transformer equipped with effective control and communication. It is expected to play a significant role in future power distribution system, however, their operational features in the medium voltage (MV) power distribution systems are yet not explored. In this paper, operation and control of ST are presented for improving its performance and operational range in a power distribution system consisting of two radial feeders in a city center. For investigating the performance of ST in above system, one conventional power transformer (CPT) is replaced by the ST whereas other feeder is continued to be supplied through the CPT. In this scheme, the ST is operated such that it makes total MV grid currents of the combined system balanced sinusoidal with unity power factor. Therefore, in addition to providing continuous and reliable operation of ST based loads, the ST can also improve the performance of the loads which are supplied by the CPT in a different feeder. Moreover, the proposed scheme eliminates the need of power quality improvement devices at the other feeder. Therefore, the scheme also makes the application of ST in the distribution system cost effective. Simulation results validate the suitability of ST in improving the performance of multiple feeder medium voltage power distribution system.