Enhancing Reactive Power Capacity in Battery-fed Power Conditioning Systems

Abstract:
In isolated electrical grids, battery energy storage systems (BESS) are crucial for increasing the integration of renewable energy sources and reducing the reliance on gas turbine generators. However, isolated systems often face power quality issues, especially when heavy motors are direct online started, requiring a large amount of reactive power. The BESS power conditioning system (PCS) is often oversized when high reactive power demands are to be met. To avoid oversizing and related additional costs, this paper proposes a novel strategy for enhancing the reactive power capacity of a single-stage battery-fed PCS. The simulation results show that employing the proposed strategy increases the reactive power capacity by approximately threefold when the battery bank’s state-of-charge is at 20%, as compared to the scenario without the strategy.