A Novel Load-Balancing Method and Device by Intelligent Grouping Compound Switches-Based Capacitor Banks Shunt Compensation

A novel compensator topology is proposed for three-phase unbalanced loads in the distribution networks. The negative and zero sequence compensation networks are proposed using delta-connected and star-connected capacitor banks. The compensation networks are paralleled with the unbalanced load to achieve a perfect balancing of active power and a complete compensation of reactive power of the unbalanced load. Intelligent grouping compound switches are implemented to control the capacitors, where, therefore, each capacitor can be switched between phases or phase and ground. Wireless sensors are also applied to acquire the load quantities. The compensation method proposed is based on symmetrical component theory. In addition, the load compensation based on instantaneous symmetrical component theory with positive sequence online extraction is proposed under unbalanced and distorted source voltages. The proposed load-balancing method and device are applied to Liaoning, Neimenggu, and Jilin provinces. The application results are provided to validate the performance of the proposed compensator topology and compensation method.