Design and control of single-phase dynamic voltage restorer

Dynamic voltage restorer (DVR) is a custom power device used in electrical distribution system for power quality improvement. It ensures regulated voltage supply to the sensitive loads, even in case of voltage sag and swell disturbances in the distribution network. It is a series connected device and compensates voltage sag and swell by injecting a voltage with the help of a series transformer. The injection of an appropriate voltage component in the event of a voltage disturbance requires a certain amount of real and reactive power. Conventionally, DVR consists of an energy storage device, which supplies the required power over the limited duration of the sags. Large magnitude and long duration of sags lead to heavy financial investment in energy storage unit. To overcome this limitation, a single-phase back-to-back converter-based DVR is implemented in this work, which eliminates energy storage requirement. The integration of series and shunt converter makes the DVR capable of bidirectional flow of energy. Therefore, the key advantage of this topology is its capability to compensate for long-term voltage sag and swell. Modelling of the DVR and its controller design is included in this paper. The effectiveness of control schemes, protection schemes and starting sequence of operation of DVR is verified through detailed simulation studies. A scaled down laboratory prototype of DVR is developed. The viability of these schemes is confirmed by the experimental results generated from the laboratory prototype. Various challenges faced during the prototype development and corresponding solutions are also discussed in this paper.