Hardware-in-the-Loop Test for Automatic Voltage Regulator of Synchronous Condenser

Automatic voltage regulator (AVR) plays an important
role in volt/var control of synchronous condenser (SC) in power
systems. Test AVR performance in steady-state and dynamic
conditions in real grid is expensive, low efficiency, and hard to
achieve. To address this issue, we implement hardware-in-the-loop
(HiL) test for the AVR of SC to test the steady-state and dynamic
performances of AVR in different operating conditions. Startup
procedure of the system and voltage set point changes are studied to
evaluate the AVR hardware response. Overexcitation, underexcitation,
and AVR set point loss are tested to compare the performance of
SC with the AVR hardware and that of simulation. The comparative
results demonstrate how AVR will work in a real system. The results
show HiL test is an effective approach for testing devices before
deployment and is able to parameterize the controller with lower
cost, higher efficiency, and more flexibility.

Authors:

• Ha Thi Nguyen
• Guangya Yang
• Arne Hejde Nielsen
• Peter Højgaard Jensen

Keywords:

• Automatic voltage regulator
• hardware-in-the-loop
• synchronous condenser
• real time digital simulator.

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