A virtual laboratory for education on reactive power compensation

Today, need for energy has been increasing. On the other hand, main energy resources such as fossil fuels have been decreased. For this reason, we need to use energy use as efficiently as possible. Many works have been carried out to increase efficient usage of electric energy. Reactive Power Compensation is one main topic of these works. Reactive power increases the losses and decreases the transmission capacity of transmission lines and takes place significant changes in voltage amplitude at the end of the line. The reactive power compensation is required to increase transmittable power in AC systems and to reduce losses. Besides, excessive voltage fluctuations in long transmission lines should be controlled by power transmission controllers at certain points of line. Although compensation has been carried out with conventional condenser and reactor systems for decades, main disadvantage of these systems is their lack of responsiveness to the changes in the system. Thus, in order to satisfy transmission lines' need for quick compensation, suitable power electronics equipment has started to be used. Such equipments named FACTS (Flexible Alternating Current Transmission Systems) are much more flexible and controllable with respect to conventional compensation systems. Undergrad students are not familiar with FACTS concept, first started to emerge in 1980's, because it is relatively new and it does not have any lab applications and educational materials. Matlab (Matrix Laboratory), a high degree programming language for technical calculations, has been in use widely in engineering fields. It is not only used in control systems, power systems, aviation, automotive, defense industry and scientific calculations, but it gives efficient solutions in short time to the problems requiring numerous iterations in other programming languages. It also includes many tools. Matlab GUI (Graphical User Interface) is one of these tools. Matlab GUI is a very flexible tool that can be used in many interface based works with its user friendly objects and easy associating capability with other tools. In this study, a virtual laboratory is formed by using Matlab GUI for education of reactive power compensation which is a very important subject of Energy Systems and Electric-Electronic Engineering. Learning and using of current education and testing softwares for compensation systems causes time loss and makes one to deviate from the main purpose. This virtual lab created by using Matlab GUI and Simulink applications that can be reach via this user interface makes it possible to educate students who does not necessarily have extensive mathematics, power electronics and programming knowledge. KeyWords: Matlab, GUI, Simulink, ReactivePower, Compensation, FACTS,STATCOM, D-STATCOM, SVC, SSSC, TCSC, UPFC, Virtual Laboratory