Sliding mode-based direct power control of unified power quality conditioner

The Unified Power Quality Conditioner (UPQC) is a promising solution for mitigating multiple Power Quality(PQ) issues in distribution systems, including harmonics, poor power factor, voltage sag/swell and voltage imbalance. The conventional Sliding Mode Controller (SMC) in UPQCs suffers from wide switching frequency variations, chattering problems, and inherent active and reactive power coupling. This study proposes a nonlinear control method, Sliding Mode-based Direct Power Control (SMC-DPC), for the simultaneous regulation of the shunt and series compensators in a UPQC. By optimizing voltage vector selection based on real-time power errors, the proposed method effectively mitigates chattering, and reduces switching frequency variations, and ensures precise tracking of instantaneous active and reactive powers even in the presence of coupling effects. The proposed approach simplifies the system design and improves steady state and dynamic power tracking. The simulation results in MATLAB Simulink® on a 20 kVA system demonstrate that the proposed method achieves a source current THD of 1.52%, compared to 2.31% for conventional SMC and 5.11% for linear controller. Furthermore, the method is robust to grid parameter variations and demonstrates satisfactory performance in both strong and weak grids. In weak grids, the proposed method reduces the line losses by 13.71% and 14.54% compared to SMC and linear controller respectively. The reported results comply with international standards such as IEEE-519 and IEC 61000-3-12, confirming effectiveness of SMC-DPC for enhancing PQ in distribution system.