Sizing Procedure of Reactive Electric Spring

Abstract

Reactive electric spring (RES) is a technique aimed at stabilizing the user voltage in presence of grid voltage variations by means of a user-encapsulated circuit. In spite of the numerous papers on the matter, no expressions are still available to size the RES elements. This paper fills this lack, by drawing up a sizing procedure of them. The procedure starts with a targeted investigation of the RES operation and exploits the outcomes to provide expressions for the values of the passive elements as well as for the voltage-current ratings of the voltage source inverter (VSI). The sizing expressions are formulated in normalized form to emphasize their dependence on the parameters of the user non-critical load. Focus of the sizing procedure is on the two RES key-elements, namely the AC-side capacitor and VSI but the AC filter inductor and the DC-side capacitor are also sized. Two options for sizing the AC-side capacitor are also discussed. At last, the study case of a user supplied by a low-voltage distribution line is considered and the sizing expressions are utilized to calculate the RES data. Experimental results, obtained by an on-purpose arranged hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) rig, validate the sizing procedure.