Realization and comparative analysis of a static VAR compensator with different control methods

The increase in reactive power demand, along with the rise in industrial loads, brings voltage drops and system instabilities in power transmission lines. Reactive power compensation applications have become an important area of research in order to improve power quality and increase system efficiency. Within the scope of this thesis, a Static Var Compensator was implemented for voltage regulation and reactive power balancing, and four different controller methods for controlling the TCR structure, namely PID, MRAC, ADRC, and ISMC, were examined comparatively. The designed system was implemented on an STM32-based hardware platform and realized using the ADE7880 energy measurement integrated circuit. Within the scope of the experimental studies, the controllers were evaluated based on their reference tracking performance, stability against disturbances, and behavior during the switching of capacitor banks. Settling time, maximum overshoot, RMSE value, and control signal energy were used as the main criteria in the performance analysis. The results obtained showed that the MRAC controller exhibited transient regime performance. Thanks to its observer-based structure, the ADRC significantly increased system stability and provided the best performance compared to other controllers under disturbing effects. Although the PID controller provided fast responses, it did not offer a clear advantage over MRAC and ADRC. ISMC, however, has offered more limited energy efficiency compared to other methods. The study provides a comparative analysis of the effectiveness of different control strategies in hardware applications, making a significant contribution from both an academic and industrial perspective.