Permanent Magnet Synchronous Condenser with Solid State Excitation: Preprint

A typical synchronous condenser (SC) consists of a free-spinning, wound-field synchronous generator and a field excitation controller. In this paper, we propose an SC that employs a permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) instead of a wound-field machine. PMSGs have the advantages of higher efficiency and reliability. In the proposed configuration, the reactive power control is achieved by a voltage converter controller connected in series to the PMSG. The controller varies the phase voltage of the PMSG and creates the same effect on the reactive power flow as that of an over- or underexcited wound-field machine. The controller's output voltage magnitude controls the amount of the reactive power produced by the SC. The phase of the controller's output is kept within a small variation from the grid voltage phase. This small phase variation is introduced so that a small amount of power can be drawn from the grid into the controller to maintain its DC bus voltage. Because the output voltage of the controller is only a fraction of the line voltage, its VA rating is only a fraction of the rating of the PMSG. The proposed scheme is shown to be effective by computer simulations.