Assessment of harmonic mitigation performance of electric springs with different inverter topologies

Abstract

Electric spring (ES) is a new technology inspired by the idea of realization a system that is equivalent to mechanical springs in terms of functionality within power systems. Electric springs are comprised from a DC voltage source, an inverter and an LC filter at the grid side. It can be used effectively in power systems to perform many functions such as voltage regulation, reactive power compensation, demand management and energy storage. On the other hand, due to the semiconductor elements in ES structure, it causes distortion on voltage and current waveforms. However, various control approaches have been proposed in the literature in order to prevent the aforementioned distortions. In this study, three different ESs has been modeled with the inverter topologies chosen from the frequently preferred once used in applications, namely Half-Bridge, Full-Bridge, and Neutral Point Clamped Multi-Level Inverter (NPC-MLI). The disruptive effects of electric springs with different inverter topologies on the grid and their performance in harmonic elimination have been examined through the results obtained from simulations realized in MATLAB/Simulink®.