Design and Application of a Five-Level Cross-Switched Inverter in Low-Voltage Distribution System Voltage Compensation

Abstract

The voltage variations in weak low-voltage distribution systems are a common practice as these systems are prone to faults and other events. In order to compensate for the voltage variations in such systems, one popular solution is to use power-electronic based series voltage compensation devices, such as the dynamic voltage restorer (DVR). A five-level cross-switched multilevel inverter (5LCSMLI) based DVR is presented in this paper. The lower AC filter requirement is achieved as a result of using the multilevel inverter. Also, the proposed DVR uses lower number of power-electronic switches compared to the conventional symmetric cascaded B-bridge (CHB) multilevel inverter-based DVR. Simulation studies are carried out to evaluate the performance of the 5LCSMLI-based DVR.