Unified Power Quality Conditioner Using Recent Optimization Technique: A Case Study in Cairo Airport, Egypt

Abstract

This article offers a power quality (PQ) strategy to reduce light intensity flickers, voltage enhancements, and harmonics mitigation of the grid current in extensive networks of LED lighting at Cairo airport, Egypt. A transformerless unified power quality conditioner (TL-UPQC) with its controls is presented to address the majority of PQ issues in a network. The TL-UPQC comprises a dynamic voltage restorer (DVR) as a series compensator, which quickly maintains the load voltage when there is a voltage decrease, surge, or flickering in the network and an active power filter (APF) acts as a shunt compensator that reduces harmonic currents and injects reactive currents. The gain values of the PI controller are obtained using an extended bald eagle search (EBES) optimizer. In addition, a comparative study of three optimizers, namely, moth flame (MFO), cuckoo search (CSA), and salp swarm algorithm (SSA), is presented to test the performance of the PI controller and fast dynamic response. The results showed that the APF nearly obtained unity PF and that the harmonics produced as THD by LED light bulbs for current at the grid were abolished that becomes 3.29%. Additionally, the results verified that TL-UPQC could cancel voltage fluctuations at grid problems so that UPQC’s performance is successfully achieved to provide a flicker-free LED lighting network and this appeared clearly when used in LED lighting network at Cairo airport. MATLAB simulation has been employed to confirm the proposed TL-UPQC’s effectiveness.