POWER QUALITY IMPROVEMENT IN HYBRID MICROGRIDS USING UNIFIED POWER QUALITY CONDITIONER

Abstract

The quick integration of renewable energy resources, BESSs, and electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure into modern power distribution systems has created many power quality, voltage regulation, reliability, and energy management issues. This project is a UPQC-Enabled Meshed Hybrid AC/DC Microgrid for Enhanced Power Quality, Renewable Energy Integration, and Grid Resilience for the improvement of the operational performance of future smart distribution systems. The proposed architecture is to create a parallel low voltage DC (LVDC) network with the existing low voltage AC (LVAC) network using the DC-link of a Unified Power Quality Conditioner (UPQC). The hybrid configuration allows for the effective integration of photovoltaic (PV) systems, battery storage units, EV charging stations and distributed DC loads with minimal power conversion losses. A comprehensive power management strategy is designed to enable the power sharing of active power to be coordinated between the AC and DC subsystems in normal power operating and abnormal power operating conditions. The UPQC can be used for voltage regulation, harmonic compensation, support of reactive power, current balancing and bi-directional power flow control. Additionally, the meshed connections offer several alternative power paths, increasing fault tolerance, flexibility, and reliability. The simulation and performance analysis of voltage sags, converter failures, renewable energy variations and load variations highlight improved power quality, voltage stability, renewable energy hosting capacity and energy utilization efficiency. The suggested system is scalable, reliable and sustainable for future smart grid, integration of renewable energy and electric vehicle supported distribution systems.