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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 29, NO. 3, JUNE 2014

Optimal Sizing of UPQC Considering VA

Loading and Maximum Utilization of
Power-Electronic Converters
Bharath Babu Ambati and Vinod Khadkikar, Member, IEEE

AbstractThis paper introduces an optimum method to design

a unified power-quality conditioner (UPQC) system with the
minimum possible VA rating based on the compensation requirements. A set of generalized VA loading equations for the UPQC is
derived, which are valid for all of the UPQC control approaches
(such as UPQC-P, UPQC-Q, and
). The variation in series and shunt inverters VA loadings of UPQC for
the given compensation requirements is analyzed for all existing
control approaches. A novel design method and the corresponding
algorithm are proposed to size the major components in an UPQC,
such as the series inverter, shunt inverter, and series transformer
corresponding to the minimum possible overall VA rating. The
VA rating and the utilization of power-electronic converters using
the proposed design method are compared with those of UPQC-P,
and
approaches to show the effectiveness of
the proposed design method.

Minimum possible value of

sag.
Maximum possible value of
swell.

during voltage

Active power handled by the shunt inverter.

Reactive power handled by the shunt inverter.
VA loading of the shunt inverter.
Active power handled by the series inverter.
Reactive power handled by the series inverter.
VA loading of the series inverter.
Rated source/load power.

Index TermsActive power filters (APF), minimum VA loading,

optimum rating, reactive power sharing, unified power-quality
conditioner (UPQC), voltage sag, voltage swell.

Total VA loading of the UPQC.

VA rating of the series transformer.

NOMENCLATURE

I. INTRODUCTION

Rated source voltage and current.

Rated load voltage and current.
Rated load power factor angle.
Voltage injected by the series part of UPQC.
Current injected by shunt inverter with

during the voltage

Current injected by the shunt inverter with

.
Displacement angle between source and load
voltages.
Displacement angle between the source and
series-injected voltages.
Ratio between actual source and rated source
voltages.
Manuscript received April 07, 2013; revised August 29, 2013; accepted December 07, 2013. Date of publication January 09, 2014; date of current version
May 20, 2014. Paper no. TPWRD-00397-2013.
The authors are with the Institute Center for Energy, Masdar Institute
of Science and Technology, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (e-mail:
bambati@masdar.ac.ae; vkhadkikar@masdar.ac.ae).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2013.2295857

N MODERN power systems, distribution utilities mandate the connected loads compliance with the strict
power-quality standards. This is to improve the reliability of
the distribution system to cater the needs of critical loads and
sensitive automation systems.
The major challenges to maintain good quality power are:
1) fundamental reactive power requirements of the connected
loads; 2) voltage sags and swells at the point of common coupling (PCC) due to connection and disconnection of large industrial loads and reactive power compensating capacitors; and
3) voltage and/or current harmonic distortion due to the presence of nonlinear loads. Active power filters (APFs) are the most
promising and widely used solutions for improving the power
quality (PQ) at the distribution level [1], [2]. These APFs can
be classified as shunt APF, series APF, and hybrid APF. The
combination of both series and shunt APFs, to mitigate almost
all of the voltage- and current-related PQ problems, is a unified power-quality conditioner (UPQC). Superior performance
and the ability to mitigate almost all major PQ problems make
UPQC the most attractive solution for PQ improvement despite
its high cost, complex structure, and control [1][3]. The system
configuration of a UPQC is shown Fig. 1.
Current trends in the area of UPQC are directed toward operating the UPQC with minimum volt-ampere (VA) loading to
reduce the overall system losses [3][12]. However, all of the

0885-8977 2014 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
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AMBATI AND KHADKIKAR: OPTIMAL SIZING OF UPQC CONSIDERING VA LOADING AND MAXIMUM UTILIZATION

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the unified power-quality conditioner (UPQC).

reported work centered on minimizing the VA loading during

voltage sag conditions [3], [4], [7][12]. The sizing aspect of
the UPQC system (including the shunt inverter, series inverter,
and series transformer) considering individual shunt and series
inverter VA loadings under different operating conditions (such
as steady state, voltage sag, voltage swell, and voltage and current harmonics compensation scenarios) is the main focus of this
paper and has not been addressed and studied so far.
Based on the control strategy being employed for voltage sag
or swell compensation, the UPQC systems can be classified as
UPQC-P, UPQC-Q, and UPQC-S [2]. The UPQC-P is considered to be a conventional UPQC, where voltage sag and swell
compensation are performed by injecting/absorbing the active
power (in-phase or out-of-phase voltage) through the series part
of the UPQC whereas the shunt inverter supports the load reactive power, active power required by the series inverter, and
the losses in the system. For the same percentage of voltage sag
and swell compensation, the VA loadings of series and shunt inverters will be maximum during the UPQC-P, compensating for
the maximum voltage sag. Hence, UPQC-P should be designed
based on the maximum voltage sag compensation. While in case
of UPQC-Q the voltage injected through a series transformer is
in quadrature with the source current. Thus, series inverter does
not require any active power for compensating the voltage sag
except for the switching and filtering losses. The UPQC-Q approach is limited to voltage sag compensation since it cannot
compensate for the voltage swell [2], [4]. For the same amount
of sag compensation, UPQC-Q requires larger series injection
voltage magnitude compared to UPQC-P [2][4], [7], [8]. This
increases the VA rating of the series transformer significantly.
Generally, the voltage sags and swells are short duration PQ
problems. Thus, in UPQC-P and UPQC-Q, series inverter VA
loading will only be utilized for short durations. On the other
hand, the shunt inverter VA loading is fully utilized throughout
the operation, due to continuous load reactive power support
and current harmonic compensation. To enhance the utilization
of series part of UPQC during steady state, part of load reactive
power is supported by the series inverter in UPQC-S [5], [6].
This role of series inverter not only improves its utilization, but
also reduces the shunt inverter VA loading. Due to the load reactive power sharing feature of the series part, the rating of the
shunt inverter in UPQC-S may be less than that in the UPQC-P.
But this is at the expense of a slightly increased series transformer rating and reduction in the percentage of swell compensation capability.

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In [3][12], several methods have been proposed for the

optimization of total instantaneous VA loading of UPQC (i.e.,
algebraic sum of VA loadings of shunt and series inverters).
In [9] and [10], the authors have used an offline optimization
method to compute the optimum angle (displacement angle
between source and load voltages) that ensure the minimum
instantaneous VA loading of UPQC for the given percentage of
voltage sag and load power factor. An 80 80 matrix-based
2-D lookup table is computed and used for the control of the
series inverter during the voltage disturbance (sag/swell) conditions. This algorithm minimizes the total UPQC VA loading
at any given operating condition; however, it does not consider
the variation in individual VA loadings of series and shunt
inverters under different operating conditions.
In [11] and [12], along with the load power factor, load current, and percentage of voltage sag, the authors have included
the allowable total harmonic distortions (THDs) of load voltage
and source current as variables in the optimization problem. A
particle swarm optimization (PSO)-based technique is used to
compute the instantaneous optimum angle. However, its impact
on VA ratings of series and shunt inverters, and series transformers is not considered.
After examining different techniques for minimizing the VA
loading of UPQC [3][12], it is clear that all the techniques
directly or indirectly control the displacement angle. The satisfactory results supporting minimum VA loading claims, at a
particular operating point, are found in the literature. It should
be noted that obtaining minimum UPQC VA loading at a certain
condition (such as voltage sag) does not guarantee minimum VA
ratings of the shunt inverter, series inverter, series transformer,
and, thus, the overall UPQC system.
Although general voltage sags and swells exist only for short
durations, the UPQC sizing should be carried out considering
the voltage sag/swell as steady-state operation for an uninterrupted operation of critical loads in the events of long duration
sags/swells (up to a few hours).
This paper deals with the sizing of the UPQC system with
minimum possible ratings of shunt and series inverters without
compromising any of its compensation capabilities under different operating conditions. An algorithm is proposed to minimize the overall VA rating of UPQC which determines the corresponding displacement angle , fundamental VA ratings of series inverter, shunt inverter, and series transformer. Similar to
the UPQC-S, the series inverter in the designed UPQC shares
part of the load reactive power. Moreover, the proposed algorithm indirectly identifies the amount of load reactive power
that needs to be shared by the series inverter. The VA loadings and utilization of power-electronic converters of the designed UPQC under different operating conditions are compared with those of UPQC-P and UPQC with minimum VA
loading
obtained by using [7][12].
II. VA LOADING AND TRANSFORMER RATING IN UPQC-P
The vector diagrams representing operation of UPQC-P
where load voltage
is always in phase with the instantaneous source voltage
during: 1) steady-state
; 2)
voltage sag
; and 3) voltage swell
conditions is
shown in Fig. 2. The magnitudes of
and
are constant at

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 29, NO. 3, JUNE 2014

Fig. 2. Operation of the UPQC-P during (a) steady state, (b) voltage sag, and (c) voltage swell (a)

rated values during all three operating conditions irrespective

of the source voltage magnitude
. To keep the magnitude
of
constant when
, the series voltage
to be injected by UPQC is always in line with the instantaneous source
voltage. To maintain the unity power factor operation at source
terminals, shunt inverter supplies entire load reactive current
requirement during
, and load reactive current plus
active current required for series inverter,
during
.
Due to the UPQC-P operation, the source current is always
in phase with the source voltage (unity power factor) and the
load do not see any change in voltage magnitude. This means
that the source (
and
) and load (
and
) powers
remain constant even under the voltage sag/swell conditions.
Approximating the total power loss
in the UPQC system
remains constant during all operating conditions, and the UPQC
power balance equation in steady state can be written as
(1)
This implies
(2)
Based on the aforementioned discussion and (1) and (2), the
source power prior and after the disturbance can be treated as
constant, i.e.,
(3)
and
are the instantaneous source voltage
Assuming
and current at any operating condition (including sag/swell) in
Fig. 2(a)(c) such that
. Therefore, from (3), the
source current during any operating condition is

1, (b)

1, and (c)

1.

Since the injected voltage

is always in-phase with the
source current
, reactive power handled by series inverter
is always zero
. Therefore, the VA loading of the
series inverter is
(6)
In case of the series transformer, voltage rating is directly
proportional to the maximum amount of sag/swell that needs to
be compensated and the current rating is equal to the maximum
current that flows in the winding during voltage sag. Thus, VA
rating of the series transformer is given as
(7)
B. VA Loading of the Shunt Part of UPQC
The role of the shunt inverter is to maintain a unity power
factor at PCC by compensating the load reactive power demand,
to maintain the dc-link voltage and to support the active power
requirements of the series inverter. If we neglect the losses in
the system, the active power handled by the shunt inverter is
equal and opposite to that of the series inverter active power
(8)
whereas the reactive power handled by the shunt inverter is
equal to the maximum load reactive power demand
(9)
VA loading of the shunt inverter at any operating point is
(10)

(4)
From (4), it is clear that the current drawn from the source
varies with as shown in Fig. 2.
A. VA Loading of the Series Part of UPQC
From Fig. 2(a)(c), the active power handled by the series
inverter of UPQC
at any operating point is the product
of series-injected voltage
and source current
, and
can be written as
(5)

C. Total VA Loading of the UPQC-P

The total VA loading of the UPQC-P system is the sum of
individual VA loadings of the shunt and series inverters. By
adding (6) and (10)
(11)
III. GENERALIZED VA LOADING EQUATIONS OF UPQC
The operation of UPQC with any arbitrary displacement
between the source voltage
and load voltage
angle

AMBATI AND KHADKIKAR: OPTIMAL SIZING OF UPQC CONSIDERING VA LOADING AND MAXIMUM UTILIZATION

Fig. 3. Operation of UPQC with the any arbitrary displacement angle

1.
(c)

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during (a) steady state (b) voltage sag, and (c) voltage swell: (a)

under: 1) steady-state
; 2) voltage sag
; and
3) voltage swell
conditions are shown in Fig. 3(a)(c).
To keep the magnitudes of load voltage
and the displacement angle
constant, the voltage injected by the series
inverter
and its angle with source voltage
are
to be controlled according to the operating condition as shown
in Fig. 3(a)(c). The behavior of load current, shunt inverter
current, and source current under different operating conditions with an arbitrary displacement angle
can be seen
in Figs. 3(a)(c). For better correlation, steady-state currents
during the operation of conventional UPQC-P (or UPQC with
) are shown with dotted lines. It can be seen that the
magnitude of load current
and load power factor angle
are constant despite angle shift in the load voltage on the
locus. For any fixed displacement angle , a fixed operating
point on the
locus exists irrespective of any source voltage
disturbance. The locus represents the maximum load current
at rated voltage with the least possible power factor.
In Fig. 3, the angles
and
resemble the operation of UPQC-P and UPQC-Q, respectively, whereas any angle
in the range
resembles the operation of UPQC-S.
A generalized vector diagram shown in Fig. 4 can be drawn
to determine the magnitude and phase angle of voltage to be
injected by the series inverter and current to be injected by the
shunt inverter. This vector diagram is applicable for all control
strategies of UPQC, including voltage sag/swell conditions.
A. VA Loading of the Series Part of UPQC
From Fig. 4, the magnitude of injected series voltage can be
written as
(12)
The angle between the source voltage and injected voltage
can be calculated as

(13)

Fig. 4. Determination of

, ,

1, (b)

1, and

, and .

The active and reactive powers handled by the series inverter

as a function of and are

(14)
(15)
The VA loading of the series inverter at any operating condition is
(16)
The series transformer should be capable of handling the
maximum series voltage and maximum possible winding current. Hence, per-phase VA rating of the series transformer can
be computed as

(17)

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B. VA Loading of the Shunt Part of UPQC

The current injected by the shunt inverter can be calculated
from Fig. 4 as

(18)
as the maximum rms load
In (18), we can write
current magnitude remains the same while the UPQC is in operation. The angle computed using the vector calculations is
(19)
Using (18) and (19), the active and reactive powers handled
by the shunt inverter are represented as
(20)
(21)
The VA loading of the shunt inverter at any operating condition is
(22)
C. Total VA Loading of the UPQC
Adding (16) and (22), the total VA rating of UPQC as a function of and can be determined as
(23)
Equation (23) represents the VA loading of any UPQC system
for any given load during different operating conditions such as
steady state
, voltage sag
, and voltage swell
.
IV. DESIGN OF THE UPQC WITH MAXIMUM UTILIZATION
The design procedure is illustrated by considering the case of
load supplied by a three-phase 400-V, 50-Hz
utility system. The sizing of the UPQC is evaluated to achieve
unity power factor at the source side with 40% voltage sag and
40% voltage swell compensation capability. A balanced supply
and a balanced harmonic-free load are considered in this design
example. By substituting the worst case operating conditions,
in the generalized VA loading equations, the maximum possible
VA loading for which the UPQC should be sized is determined.
The total VA loadings of the UPQC (23) with variation from
to
, under: 1) steady state without sag/swell (i.e.,
);
); and 3) 40% voltage swell
2) 40% voltage sag (i.e.,
) are plotted in Fig. 5.
(i.e.,
Any successful attempt to optimize the total VA loading of
the UPQC will converge to the valley points marked in Fig. 5.
During 40% voltage sag, the minimum possible total UPQC
VA loading/phase is 4625 VA and that occurs at
whereas the minimum possible VA loading/phase during 40%

Fig. 5. VA loading of the UPQC under different operating conditions.

swell compensation is 4106 VA at

. During steady-state
operation, the minimum possible VA loading/phase is 3334 VA
. The use of any optimization algorithm in [7][12]
at
guarantees the minimum possible VA loading at any particular
operating condition. But this does not guarantee the minimum
overall VA rating (i.e., size) of the UPQC system since this
approach does not deal with the individual VA loadings of
shunt and series inverters. To demonstrate this aspect, the
individual loadings of shunt and series inverters, together with
the total UPQC VA loading, are provided in Fig. 6(a) for the
steady state, (b) 40% sag, and (c) 40% swell conditions. These
VA loading curves are drawn by using generalized equations
to
.
derived in Section III by varying the from
)
The parameters, for the case of UPQC-P (when
without any optimization, and computed using (6)(11) are
in Fig. 6, the total VA
given in Table I. From Table I or
rating of UPQC-P for the specifications considered in this deor 18 690
sign example is 6230 VA
VA for the three-phase system. Note that the VA loading of
the series transformer is identical to that of the series inverter.
The maximum voltage per phase that needs to be injected
to compensate 40% voltage sag and swell is 93 V. From the
Table I, it can be observed that the sizing of the series inverter,
shunt inverter, and series transformer in UPQC-P should be
designed based on voltage sag compensation VA loadings (if
the design is for the same amount of voltage sag and swell
compensation).
[7][12] apA detailed analysis on the
proach employing the optimization techniques is also carried
, the VA loadout. To design the rating of the
ings of series and shunt parts of UPQC, and total VA loading
of UPQC should be obtained for different operating conditions. The use of any optimization technique for minimizing
converges to
the operational VA loading in
for
,
for
and
for
as indicated in Fig. 5. These points can be identified
in Fig. 6(a)(c) to obtain the VA loadings of the shunt and
series inverters, total VA loading of the UPQC, and the voltage
injected by the series transformer. The results obtained using

AMBATI AND KHADKIKAR: OPTIMAL SIZING OF UPQC CONSIDERING VA LOADING AND MAXIMUM UTILIZATION

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TABLE I
VA LOADING IN UPQC-P WITHOUT OPTIMIZATION

TABLE II
VA LOADING IN

Fig. 6. VA loading during (a) steady-state operation

, and (c) 40% voltage swell
.
sag

, (b) 40% voltage

the minimum VA loading approach of

are as
listed in Table II.
As noticed from Table II, despite minimum UPQC VA
compared to
loading design (4625 VA in
6230 VA in UPQC-P), the required maximum VA loading of
the series inverter is 3577 VA during 40% sag (higher than
UPQC-P). Thus, in order to achieve this minimum total UPQC
VA loading with the aforementioned approach, the series inverter should be rated/sized at 3577 VA and the shunt inverter

should be rated/sized at 3334 VA, which are the maximum

values of shunt and series inverter VA loadings out of steady
state, sag, and swell conditions. Thus, the overall VA rating of
system is 20 733 VA
.
the
The maximum voltage/phase that needs to be injected by the
series transformer is 149 V. These ratings are higher than
those of the UPQC-P. Hence, the advantage of minimum VA
loading for a particular operating condition is at the expense of
increased overall UPQC system size.
After examining the individual VA loading variation of shunt
and series inverters with different angles under different operating conditions, a comprehensive design procedure is proposed
to minimize the overall VA rating of the system. Furthermore, it
identifies the optimal at which the total VA rating of the UPQC
is minimum.
In the proposed design method, for every small step change
in , the individual VA loadings of the series inverter,
shunt inverter, and series transformer are computed under
; 2)
; and
the full-load condition with: 1)
separately using (12)(23). Then, it selects the
3)
maximum VA loading of the series inverter among the set of
three values computed separately. This occurs simultaneously
for shunt inverter VA loading, series-injected voltage, and
the series transformer VA rating. These individual VA loadings/ratings are stored in an array against the corresponding
(i.e.,
,
,
,
, C versus as shown in Fig. 7).
.
This process continues until the delta reach a value of
cannot be the optimal since the active
Any angle beyond
and reactive powers need to be handled by the series inverter
and transformer rise significantly afterwards. The sum of the
and series inverter rating
,
shunt inverter rating
of the UPQC, is
which represents the total VA rating

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Fig. 8. Pplot of

Fig. 7. Flowchart to achieve the optimal sizing of UPQC by solving the generalized equations.
TABLE III
OUTPUTS OF THE PROPOSED DESIGN ALGORITHM

then plotted against the angle stored in the same array. The
valley point on the
curve is the minimum possible VA
, and the corresponding is the
rating of the UPQC
optimum displacement angle between the source voltage and
load voltage that guarantees minimum VA rating of the system.
Once the optimum angle is obtained, corresponding values
are given as outputs from the data stored in internal memory as
shown in Table III.
The flowchart for solving (12)(23) and finding the optimum
size using the proposed design method is shown in Fig. 7. The

, and

versus .

proposed approach is applicable for any load power factor angle.

The intermediate results (i.e.,
,
, and
versus )
obtained with the proposed design method are shown in Fig. 8.
In Fig. 8 of the present design example, sag compensation is
more demanding in terms of VA loadings of the series inverter
. Therefore, the sizing of
and shunt inverter up to
the total UPQC is solely decided by sag compensation up to
. Afterwards, swell compensation decides the shunt
inverter rating and sag compensation continues to decide the
series inverter rating.
From Fig. 8, the valley point on the total VA rating curve of
UPQC is ( , 5397 VA). The ratings of the series and shunt inverters corresponding to the minimum VA rating, using the proposed design method are: 2490 VA and 2907 VA, respectively.
Hence, the total VA rating of the designed UPQC is 16 191 VA
.
shift between the source voltage and the load
This
voltage should be maintained by the control algorithm to keep
the VA loadings of both inverters below these maximum ratings
at any operating condition. As may be observed from Figs. 3 and
4, the shift between the source voltage and load voltage is to
be maintained by the series inverter by injecting series voltage
at an angle with source voltage. These
and can
be calculated using (12) and (13) which are independent of load
condition, that is, load current. Replacing the online optimizaand in [5][12] with the
tion approaches to determine
straightforward approach using (12) and (13) is the simplest way
to realize the control implementation.
It is important to note that sizing is carried out for full load
and worst case sag/swell operations with a fixed optimum .
In case of reduced load and/or less severe voltage sag/swells,
online optimization methods can be employed in control algorithms to minimize the operational losses of UPQC by temporarily changing the displacement angle keeping shunt and
series inverters ratings, and series transformer rating, maximum
series voltage injection as constraints for optimization.
Furthermore, due to generalization of VA loading equations,
the VA ratings of different types of UPQC for the same functional specifications can be obtained directly from Fig. 8 when
. VA ratings of the series inverter, shunt inverter, and total

AMBATI AND KHADKIKAR: OPTIMAL SIZING OF UPQC CONSIDERING VA LOADING AND MAXIMUM UTILIZATION

TABLE IV
VA LOADING IN UPQC WITH MAXIMUM UTILIZATION
USING THE PROPOSED SIZING APPROACH

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BY

TABLE V
SIZING COMPARISON OF THE UPQC SYSTEM WITH DIFFERENT DESIGN
APPROACHES FOR THE SAME COMPENSATION REQUIREMENTS

VA rating of the UPQC, marked on the -axis of Fig. 8, represent the VA ratings of UPQC-P. These results can be verified
with the ratings obtained in Table I. With the computed optimum
, the maximum VA loadings of the
displacement angle
series and shunt inverters, and the total UPQC under different
operating conditions computed using (12)(23) are shown in
Table IV.
), from Table IV, as long
During the steady state (i.e.,
as the load reactive power is more than 2610 VA
3870], the
.
control strategy of the series inverter should maintain
If the load reactive power demand goes below 2610 VA, the
control strategy may be switched to UPQC-P operation (i.e.,
) to avoid the overutilization to reduce the losses in UPQC.
The utilization of the series inverter, shunt inverter,
and the total UPQC under different operating conditions in three different designs such as: 1) UPQC-P; 2)
[7][12]; and 3) UPQC with the proposed
maximum utilization are illustrated in Fig. 9. The utilization of
the series and shunt inverters in UPQC-P and
is lower compared with those of the proposed approach. The
better utilization of the inverters in all operating modes, including steady state, gives the least sizing of the UPQC in the
proposed design method. The comparison of VA ratings of the
total UPQC system and series transformer between UPQC-P
and UPQC with maximum utilization is made
in Table V.
Considering UPQC-P as the base design for comparison analysis, the total VA rating of UPQC with minimum VA loading
design will increase by 2043 VA and the VA rating of the series transformer will rise by 4041 VA. The increased sizing of

Fig. 9. Utilization of the overall rating of UPQC, series and shunt parts of
UPQC in: (a) UPQC-P, (b) UPQC with minimum VA loading, and (c) UPQC
with maximum utilization using the proposed design method.

power-electronic converters and series transformer will add to

whereas the VA rating of the series
the cost of
transformer in the proposed design is 1732 VA higher than in
UPQC-P, but the rating of the UPQC inverters is brought down
by 2499 VA. This reduction in the VA rating of power-electronic
converters comparatively brings down the manufacturing cost
of the entire UPQC system.

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V. DESIGN OF UPQC FOR HARMONIC

UNBALANCE ENVIRONMENTS

AND

The rating optimization algorithm developed in the previous

sections deals with the variables which are positive-sequence
components at the fundamental frequency only. This is due to
the fact that source voltage harmonics/unbalance can be mitigated by the series part of the UPQC only and current harmonics/unbalance can be tackled by the shunt part of the UPQC
only. Unlike the sharing of fundamental load reactive power
in maintaining unity power factor operation, compensation of
these kinds of disturbances cannot be shared between the series
and shunt inverters.
The sizing procedure can further be extended to include harmonic (both voltage and current) compensation simply by considering appropriate distortion levels. For example, with a perunit total source voltage harmonic distortion
and a perunit total load current harmonic distortion
, the actual ratings of the series inverter
and shunt inverter
with the proposed approach would be as follows:

(24)
(25)
Similarly, the actual VA rating of the series transformer
can be given by
(26)
where
,
, and
are outputs of the developed
algorithm shown in Fig. 7. This increase in VA ratings to incorporate harmonic compensation will be very minimal compared
to the fundamental VA ratings. Similar to harmonic compensation capability, for source voltage and/or load current unbalance
compensation, the required voltage and current unbalance factors should be included in (24)(26).
VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper, the phenomena of variation in the rating of
the UPQC system with the variation in displacement angle between source and load voltages (i.e., fundamental load reactive
power sharing) has been studied by formulating the generalized
VA loading equations of UPQC systems. Based on the conceptual study made, an algorithm has been developed to identify
the minimum possible VA rating of the UPQC system and that
results in the corresponding optimal displacement angle , series inverter, shunt inverter, and series transformer ratings. This
paper thus provides the guidelines for the futuristic research
studies to develop the control strategies for UPQC that are based
on online/offline optimization of instantaneous VA loading for
reduced power losses and the VA burden on the UPQC system.
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Bharath Babu Ambati received the B.E. degree in
electrical and electronics engineering from Sir C. R.
Reddy College of Engineering (affiliated to Andhra
University), Eluru, India, in 2009, the M.Tech. degree in power electronics, electrical machines, and
drives (PEEMD) from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, New Delhi, India, in 2011, and is
currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in interdisciplinary engineering at Masdar Institute of Science and
Technology, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
From 2011 to 2012, he was with Schneider Electric
India Private Ltd., as a Product Expert of Motion & Drives. His current research
interests include power electronics, electrical machines, renewable energy generation, and power quality.

Vinod Khadkikar (S06M09) received the B.E.

degree in electrical engineering from the Government College of Engineering, Dr. Babasaheb
Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad,
India, in 2000, the M.Tech. degree in electrical
engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology
(IITD), New Delhi, India, in 2002, and the Ph.D.
degree in electrical engineering from the cole de
Technologie Suprieure (E.T.S.), Montral, QC,
Canada, in 2008.
From 2008 to 2010, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow
at the University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada. Since 2010, he has
been an Assistant Professor with Masdar Institute of Science and Technology,
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. In 2010, he was a visiting faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA. His research interests
include applications of power electronics in distribution systems and renewable
energy resources, grid interconnection issues, power-quality enhancement, as
well as active power filters and electric vehicles.