LAUSR

Abstract Voltage unbalance is a major yet often overlooked power quality problem in low voltage residential feeders due to the random location and rating of single-phase renewable sources and uneven distribution of household loads. This paper proposes a new indicator of voltage deviation that may serve as a basis of analysis and compensation methods in this dimension of power quality. The paper proposes three main results. First of all a novel voltage norm capable of jointly indicating unbalance and under-voltage in a single value, afterwards a three phase unbalance reduction controller structure is given. As the third main result, the proposed controller structure is integrated with an optimization based control algorithm that uses asynchronous parallel pattern search as its engine. The suggested structure and the underlying three phase power grid model has been implemented in a dynamical simulation environment and tested against engineering expectations. The simulation based experiments served as a proof of concept for the proposed complex control structure. The experiments included performance and robustness analysis, both of them concluded that the proposed control and inverter structure is promising. The proposed three phase inverter structure together with the control algorithm connected with a renewable source (photovoltaic panel or wind turbine) is capable of an asymmetric power injection or rerouting the energy flow to the grid so that the voltage unbalance decrease. This is also important from the environmental point of view since the achieved power loss reduction can easily be translated to CO2 emission reduction and carbon footprint - these indicators has also been calculated.