Design and experimental analysis of an advanced static VAR compensator with computer aided control

This study presents integration of a real-time energy monitoring and control system with an advanced reactive power compensation unit based on fixed capacitor-thyristor controlled reactor (FC-TCR). Firing angles of the thyristors located in the FC-TCR are controlled by a microcontroller in order to keep the power factor within the limits. Electrical parameters of the system are measured by specially designed circuits and simultaneously transferred to the computer via a data acquisition board. Thus, real time data of the system can be observed through a visual user interface. The data obtained is not only analyzed for control process, but also regularly saved into a database. The system has been tested in laboratory conditions under different load characteristics and experimental results verified that the system successfully and accurately achieves compensation process against the all operational conditions.