8th International Conference on Computing, Communication & Sensor Networks, CCSN2019
Performance Analysis of ANN based UPQC: to Improve Power Quality of
Hybrid Green Energy System Connected to Weak Grid
CH. Siva Kumar, G. Mallesham
Department of Electrical Engineering
University College of Engineering, OU, Hyderabad, TS, India-500007, INDIA
ch_siva_kumar@rediffmail.com, drgm@osmania.ac.in
ABSTRACT
The main purpose of this paper is to address the power
quality issues arose due to the presence of wind energy
system in a hybrid electrical energy system: proton
exchange membrane fuel cell system and permanent
magnet synchronous generator-based wind energy system
connected to weak grid. In this work, built a mathematical
model of a hybrid renewable system consisting of wind
energy system with permanent magnet synchronous
generator, proton exchange membrane fuel cell system. To
address the power quality issue in a hybrid weak grid
system developed an artificial neural network based UPQC.
Simulation results are shown to verify the performance of
the compensator to mitigate active power, reactive power
fluctuations, voltage fluctuations due to wind energy
system. Further, the compensator is used to mitigate
symmetrical sags due to symmetrical loading conditions
and swells due to unsymmetrical conditions.
Keywords: renewable energy, hybrid green energy
system, wind energy system, proton exchange membrane
fuel cell, artificial neural network, weak grid.
I. INTRODUCTION
The annual rise in carbon dioxide around world is about
1.3% [1]. This growth further increases across the globe as
there is a rapid growth in all industrial sectors, power
sectors, transport systems etc. which further worsen
weather conditions on the globe [2], [3]. Globally many
governments set new policies and their targets at sub-
national level for de-carbonization, with increasing private
sector players in generation of electrical energy results in
growing the market for green renewable energy sources. As
per the Renewables 2019 Global Status Report, during the
last year a total significant capacity of 2,378 gigawatts
(GW) of renewable power was added globally out of which
around 28% is wind energy [4]. As the penetration levels of
these green renewable energy systems increases to reduce
the decolonization in one aspect, in another aspect it
increases the power quality issues in modern power system.
There is another emerging research field in electrical
engineering is fuel cell systems. As the globe is looking
into more and more utilization of fuel cell based electrical
vehicles in transport systems to reduce the carbon
emissions. The benefits of using fuel cell-based charging
stations are: improve profit, fast installation of station, fast
and smart charging, easy conversion of hydrogen, reliable,
low-maintenance and quiet in operation, [5], [6] etc.
The above two situations demand a combined operation of
differently characterized green renewable energy resources
like wind-fuel cell systems, wind-solar, wind-hydro
systems, wind-geothermal etc., working together in a
common grid as a hybrid grid, working under these
situations is a challenging task for the working engineers to
generate, co-ordinate and controlling of diversified
characterized renewable energy systems in a grid,
especially weak electrical grid system [7]. One of the main
objectives of electrical utility industry is to meet the power
balance equation i.e. generation must be equal to sum of
loads and losses in the system along with reliable,
uninterrupted, secured power to customers irrespective of
power quality problems aroused at utility premises,
customers, equipment or any other combinations etc., The
above mentioned problems comes under the category of
power quality problems of utility systems. These power
quality problems cannot be handled by the utility system on
its own. With the recent progresses in power electronics
devices and applications to electrical power systems for the
benefit of end users called custom power devices like
Dynamic voltage restorer (DVR), Distribution Static
compensator (DSTATCOM) and Unified Power Quality
Conditioner (UPQC) are solutions to improve the power
quality. Out of all custom power devices UPQC has the
better features of controlling power quality issues [8].
Many research works proposed different control
approaches to extract distorted components like: H.Akagi
et al. [9] proposed instantaneous active and reactive power
concept, Enhanced PLL based SRF control method [10],
hybrid fuzzy back-propagation control scheme [11], A new
SRF based power angle control method[12], etc., for
controlling of UPQC for a single power source and grid
systems. The complete work of the of the paper is
organized into different sections. The main part of the work
is mathematical modelling of hybrid renewable systems:
wind energy system with wind turbine and permanent
magnet synchronous generator and fuel cell system,
modelled a multilayer feedforward-type ANN-based UPQC
in section II. In section III discussed in detail about
performance analysis of ANN based UPQC in a weak grid
network. Finally concluded the work in section IV.
II. MATHEMATICAL MODELLING OF
COMPONENTS USED FOR MATLAB
SIMULATION
The most premising tool used by the engineers to solve
effectively and safely is simulation. It needs the complete
mathematical model-based description with complete
physical properties of a system to study and analyze. It
 8th International Conference on Computing, Communication & Sensor Networks, CCSN2019
Fig. 1. Wind turbine power curves
reduces real time cost, time of operation, flexibility to
redesign the system, suggests required modifications and
complete insights of any system to study and analyze. To
carry this work, MATLAB/Simulink software is used. The
following subsections describe the respective mathematical
modelling of the components.
A. Modelling of Wind Turbine
Wind energy is an alternative form of solar energy. The
two major influences on the atmospheric circulation are the
differential heating between the equator and the poles and
the rotation of the planet causes uneven heating and cooling
of earth surface, creating atmospheric pressure zones that
make air flow from high- to low-pressure areas. This
movement of air called wind. Harvesting power from the
wind is not exactly a new idea and it has been extracted
from the wind over hundreds of years with remarkable
designs. The energy available in wind is converted into
rotational mechanical energy using a wind energy converter
called a wind mill or wind turbine. The rotating airfoils or
blade designs operate on either the principle of drag or lift.
Lift-powered wind turbines are more suitable for the
generation of electrical power because of its higher
rotational speeds. The mathematical expression for power
output of a wind turbine (variable speed) and output torque
are represented as:
1 inertia, and ωm: mechanical rotational speed. In this work
Pm   Avw3 C p ( ,  ) (1)
2 connected to grid through a 3-ph 100 MVA 690 V/ 33 kV
1
Tt   r 3C pVd2 (2)
2
Where, ρ: air density (1.225kg/m3), A: swept area ( m2),
υw: wind velocity (m/s), and Cp: power coefficient - 0.59,
Vd: disturbed wind speed.
When the wind turbine blades swing behind the tower, the
wind it encounters briefly reduced and the blade flexes. The
tower shadow affects the wind turbine dynamics which
produces periodic power fluctuations in electrical power
output of a wind turbine generator [13], [14]. Horizontal
axis wind turbines produces periodic electrical power
fluctuations. This depends upon the n (number of blades)
times the blade rotational frequency. This problem is not a
big deal for upwind turbine as for downwind turbines.
This is the one of the power quality issues in electrical
systems. Hence, in this paper ANN based UPQC is built to
mitigate the power fluctuations due to wind turbine tower
shadow affect. The mathematical expression for this
disturbance is:
Vd  Vh (1  vm  vtower ) (3)
Where, Tt: mechanical torque, Vh: incoming wind speed,
Vd: disturbed wind speed, vm: variation in wind shear and
tower shadow disturbance -vtower.
The overall output power of wind turbine is (mechanical):
21.6e6 watts and operated with a base wind speed of:
14 m/s.
B. Modelling of Permanent Magnet Synchronous
Generator
There are two stages of conversion of energy takes place in
wind turbine operation. The first one is: conversion of wind
energy to rotational mechanical energy using aerodynamic
rotor blades. The second one is: conversion of rotational
energy into electrical energy using electro-mechanical
energy conversion device: electrical machine called a
electrical generator. The most commonly used electrical
generators are: synchronous and asynchronous generators
with variable speed and fixed speed. The recent
developments in synchronous generators: permanent
magnet synchronous generators (PMSGs). PMSG are
increasingly being used as variable speed turbines. PMSG
as the features like: reduces cost of slip rings, high
conversation efficiency, less maintenance, high reliability
etc. The dynamics of the machine referred [15], [16], [17].
The mathematical expression for torque developed in the
machine represented as:
d m
Te  J eq  Dm  T (4)
dt
Where, D: rotational damping, Jeq (= Jg + Jw): equivalent
modelled a PMSG with a total capacity of 21.6MW
transformer to grid.
C. Electrical Weak Grid System
One of the factors on which the manufacturers of wind
tribunes depend on: tolerance of Short Circuit Ratio -
which determines the stiffness of the gird. If the SCR
below 2.5 is treated as a weak grid and on the other hand, it
is considered as a strong grid it SCR value is greater than
20. A weak grid is sensitive to voltage fluctuations and to
reactive power and a strong grid has the capability to
maintain the reactive power variations due to voltage
fluctuations. The r value of the system considered is [18]:
S sc
r 5.5 (5)
PWF
 8th International Conference on Computing, Communication & Sensor Networks, CCSN2019
Fig. 2. a) Voltage - Current characteristics a fuel cell b)
Power curve: PEMFC
D. Modelling of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell
The salient features f electro-chemical fuel cell technology
is: fuel flexibility, portability, noise free operation, quick
start-up, higher power density and operates at relatively
low temperatures. These features made a strong comeback
of this technology for the generation of power in distributed
power generation sectors. For the continuous operation of
fuel cell, fuel is supplied continually to anode and the
corresponding reactant at cathode. Polymer membrane
which conducts protons through it is used as a electrolyte.
The following are the chemical reactions that are takes
place in PEMFC: reactions at anode:
H 2  H   2e 
reactions at cathode:
1/ 2O2  2 H  2e  H 2O
In Fig 2(a) shown the basic V-I characteristics of PEMFC.
One of the key factors which influences these
characteristics is fuel cell operating temperature. With the
lowering in working temperature of the fuel cell the
activation losses increases. Similarly, with increasing
temperature reduction in activation loses. Therefore, it is
required to maintain constant temperature and pressure
levels in the fuel cell. The rate of conversion of hydrogen
( U fH 2 ) and oxygen ( U fO2 ) respectively represented as:
60000 RTNi f c
U fH 2  0  U f H2  1
zFPFuelVlpm ( fuel )  x%
and
60000 RTNi f c
U fO2  0  U f O2  1
2 zFPFuelVlpm ( air )  y %
where, - PFuel, Pair and Vlpm (fuel) are: absolute pressurized
fuel, air supply and fuel flow rate respectively. Percentage
hydrogen and oxygen are: x and y respectively.
Vs
VDC
Is
Fig. 3. The complete block diagram representation of UPQC
Fig. 2(b) shows the relation between Power - Current its
operating point. In this work modelled a 100 kW - 625 V
PEMFC [19], [20] with fuel cell: hydrogen and oxygen at
anode and cathode respectively. A PWM converter is used
to convert the DC to C. the complete PEMFC system is
connected to grid through a 100 kVA 690/33kV three phase
transformer.
E. Modelling of ANN based UPQC
In the present scenario, power quality issue is one of the
major issues in electrical power distribution system to
maintain the system parameters within the international
standards like IEEE Standard 519-1992 (1992); IEEE
(6) Standard 1547- 2003 (2003) etc. custom power devices are
the solutions to handle and control power quality issues at
distribution level. In this work a custom power device is
called UPQC is modeled using ANN control technique. A
(7)
UPQC consists of three major parts: series : shunt and a
common DC source: DC link. Different power theories and
techniques for UPQC have been used by the researchers are
discussed in introduction. The complete block diagram
representation of UPQC is shown in Fig. 3 [21].
Combined intelligence of human intelligence, applications
of machine processes and computer system: Artificial
intelligence has become a part of design, analysis,
processing, planning and controlling. With the introduction
of these systems reducing the human errors, fastens the best
solutions to single and multiple objectives, solutions to
non-linear systems etc. has made a significant
(8) transformation in all fields of engineering and non-
engineering sectors. In this work, a sub area of Artificial
intelligence: ANN technique is basically derived from
human nervous system: neurons in the brain. In this work
an ANN based UPQC (p-q theory) is built to improve the
(9) power quality of a hybrid green energy system with the
following parameters: ANN: No. of layers hidden layers: 3,
No. of epochs: 500, No. of inputs: 1 and outputs: 1 of the
error voltage of: PCC and DC link voltage. Training
control scheme used is: Gradient descent back propagation
with adaptive learning algorithm, which has the highest
performance and quick convergence than back-propagation
 8th International Conference on Computing, Communication & Sensor Networks, CCSN2019

Fig. 6. Without UPQC: Active and reactive powers: (a) P and Q at

grid (b) P and Q at PMSG based wind system (c) P and Q at
PEMFC.

Fig. 4. Flow chart for implementation of ANN.

Fig. 7. With UPQC: Active and reactive powers: (a) P and Q at

Fig. 5. Hybrid green energy system connected to weak grid .
algorithms. The implemented complete control of ANN is
shown in the flow chart in Fig. 4. At PCC: UPQC (shunt
compensator) injects the currents to compensate the
changes in active power: ΔP and reactive power: ΔQ
fluctuations. Further, UPQC (series controller) compensates
voltages fluctuations: by injecting the voltage. [18]. The
following are the mathematical represents of active power:
reactive power: of the controller
3
PshuntC (t )  VdPCC (t ).I dshuC (t )
2 fuel cell system without using UPQC. Fig. 7 (a), 7(b) and
3 fluctuations exits till 2.5 seconds then on-wards there are
QshuntC (t )   VdPCC (t ).I qshuC (t )
2 no active and reactive power fluctuations. These active
III. PERFORMANCE AND ANALYSIS ANN BASED
UPQC
Built the hybrid network shown in Fig. 5 using
MATLAB/Simulink to study the performance and analysis
of ANN based UPQC. The network consists of a weak grid
with a voltage level of 33kV, a 21.6MW PMSG based wind
energy system, a 100 kW rated PEMFC [22]. The notation
ith and jth is used to represent the impedance Z between the
nodes Zij. An ANN based UPQC placed in the network at
BB6. To study the performance of the built ANN based
grid (b) P and Q at PMSG based wind system (c) P and Q at
PEMFC.
UPQC the following case studies have been carried.
A. Simulation case study 1: Tower shadowing affect and
balanced sags
Fig. 5 is considered to study the impact of tower shadow
affect of wind turbine the system. The simulation is carried
for a time period of 6 seconds with different balanced
loading L1: 15 MW + j 6.31 MVAr , L2: 12 MW - j 2.4
MVAr, L3: 9.2 MW + j 1.85 MVAr and L4 : 20 MW + j 15
MVAr respectively at: 3.6, 4.2, 4.6 and 5.2 seconds
respectively. The Fig. 6(a), 6(b) and 6(c) clearly
demonstrates the active and reactive power fluctuations due
(10) to tower shadowing affect at : grid, wind energy system and
7(c) clearly demonstrates the active and reactive power
(11)
power and reactive power fluctuations resulted due to
torque variations in wind turbine eq. 4. At time 2.5 seconds
both the series and shunt controllers of ANN based UPQC
is put into operation. The simulation results shown in Fig. 7
are the evidence of improvement of power quality using
modelled an ANN based UPQC. In Fig. 8(a), 8(b), 8(c) and
8(d) represented the terminal voltage at point of common
connection, grid, wind energy system, and fuel cell system
of for the entire simulation period. As it is clearly
demonstrated in Fig. 8(c) the voltage fluctuations are
existing till 2.5 seconds i.e. before the complete UPQC
 8th International Conference on Computing, Communication & Sensor Networks, CCSN2019
Fig. 8. Terminal voltage at: (a) point of common connection,
(b) grid (c) wind energy system and (d) fuel cell system.
Fig. 9. Three phase currents without UPQC: (a) grid (b) wind
energy system and (c) PEMFC System.
Fig. 10. Three phase currents with UPQC: (a) grid (b) wind
energy system and (c) PEMFC system.
put-into operation. And carried the analysis and it is found
that these fluctuations are with IEC 61000-4-15.
In Fig. 9(a), Fig. 9(b), Fig. 9(c) and Fig. 10(a), Fig. 10(b)
and Fig. 10(c) represents the three phase currents: at grid
terminals: wind system and: PMFC: with and without
presence of UPQC respectively. After analyzing the Fig. 9
and Fig. 10: we concluded that the current drawing is more
in presence of UPQC as it consumes the reactive power.
Fig. 11: Fig. 11(a), Fig. 11(b) and Fig.11(c) demonstrates:
Voltage injected by series part of UPQC and active powers
of series and shunt controllers respectively. In Fig. 8(a) it is
clear that there is a drop in voltage at 4.6 seconds. The duty
of the series controller is to compensate these variations by
Fig. 11. (a) Active power of series controller (b) Active power of
Shunt controller (c) Reactive power of Series controller (d)
Reactive power of shunt controller
injecting the voltage.
B. Case 2: Unbalanced Swells due to Unsymmetrical
conditions
Another important power quality aspect that generally the
power system subjected to is: Voltage swell is quite
opposite to sag: increasing the voltage more than one cycle
and less than a few seconds. This power quality issue arises
due to: sudden change in the reference of the ground, raise
in un-faulted phases, large loads de-energiszation,
insulation failure, damage to the very sensitive loads etc.
To analyse the compensator under these conditions built a
system with different un-sysmmetcal conditions. The
simulation of this case study is also carried for the
simulation time period of 6 seconds. Initially loaded the
system with balanced loads of 15 MW + j6.31 and 12 MW
- j 2.4 MVAr same that of the case 1. The following un-
symmetrical conditions are created to analyse
ANN based UPQC. Faults are created on LV side of 630
kVA, 33 kV/690 V.
1) 4.6 to 4.8 s: 3- phase fault with Rf - 0.001 Ω ground
resistance: Rg - 0.001 Ω.
2) 5.2 to 5.4 s: L-L fault with 9 ohms resistance ground
resistance: 0.001 Ω.
3) 5.6 to 5.8 s: L-G fault with ground resistance: 0.001 Ω.
The above mentioned conditions are modelled using
MATLAB/ Simulink and are shown in Fig. 12. Fig. 12 (b)
shows the swell due to three phase fault with ground
resistance. fig.12(c): swell due to L-L fault with resistance
and ground resistance and finally Fig, 12(d) shows the
swell due to L-G fault with resistance of 0.001 ohms.
Fig. 12 (a) represents the impact of swell using an ANN
based UPQC. Fig. 12 (a) clearly demonstrates the
performance of an ANN based UPQC to overcome the
power quality issue called the swell within IEEE 1159-
1995 standards [23].
IV. CONCLUSION
In this paper, performance analysis of an ANN based
custom power device UPQC carried for the proposed
differently characterised hybrid green energy system with
 8th International Conference on Computing, Communication & Sensor Networks, CCSN2019
Fig. 12. Three phase voltages: (a) 3 - phase fault (b) 3 - phase
fault with Rg: 0.001 Ω(c) L - L fault with Rf: 9 Ω and Rg : 0.001
Ω(d) L - G fault with Rg : 0.001 Ω.
permanent magnet synchronous generator based wind
energy system and proton exchange membrane fuel cell
system in a weak grid. The modelled compensator
effectively handled both voltage and power fluctuations due
to the tower shadowing effect of wind energy system with
out any difficulty by injecting an appropriate voltage
components and power quality issues due to symmetrical
sag and unsymmetrical loading conditions within IEC
61000-4-15 and IEEE 1159-1995 international standards.
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