Center for Research in Energy Systems Transformation (CREST)

Electric spring (ES), a new smart grid technology, has earlier been used for providing voltage and power stability in a weakly regulated/stand-alone renewable energy source powered grid. It has been proposed as a demand-side management technique to provide voltage and power regulation. In this paper, a new control scheme is presented for the implementation of the ES, in conjunction with noncritical building loads like electric heaters, refrigerators, and central air conditioning system. This control scheme would be able to provide power factor correction of the system, voltage support, and power balance for the critical loads, such as the building's security system, in addition to the existing characteristics of ES of voltage and power stability. The proposed control scheme is compared with original ES's control scheme where only reactive power is injected. The improvised control scheme opens new avenues for the utilization of the ES to a greater extent by providing voltage and power stability and enhancing the power quality in the renewable energy powered microgrids.