STATCOM Performance Evaluation Using Operation Data from Digital Fault Recorder

TL;DR

This paper presents a framework for evaluating STATCOM performance using operational data from Digital Fault Recorders, addressing challenges like automatic gain adjustment and validating the method with real fault events.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to assess STATCOM responses by matching external system conditions and validates it with actual fault data.

Findings

Effective evaluation of STATCOM performance from field data

Successful handling of automatic gain adjustment feature

Validation with real fault events confirms method reliability

Abstract

Static Synchronous Compensators (STATCOMs) are being employed by Dominion Energy to control voltage and enhance system stability. Due to the complexity of the control systems, operational modes, and nonlinearities, it is essential to evaluate STATCOMs' behavior to ensure their correct and proper response to dynamic events such as line faults, generator trip, or load rejection throughout the grid. This procedure brings benefit to device management by identifying potential equipment problems and improve dynamic model for simulation study. The proposed framework utilizes operation data collected in Digital Fault Recorder (DFR) to evaluate STATCOM's response to dynamic system events. One of the challenges on getting accurate model response comes from STATCOMs with automatic gain adjustment feature. This feature actively measures the external system's Thevanin impedance and accordingly changes the STATCOM gain. Therefore, when trying to recreate the field measurements in the simulation environment, it is necessary to match the short circuit level (SCL) of the external system equivalent. This paper presents how these issues have been solved in order to evaluate STATCOM's performance. Finally, the effectiveness of proposed performance evaluation method is validated based on two actual events caused by faults.