Electric Spring for Voltage and Power Stability and Power Factor Correction

Electric Spring, 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. Buildings provide a great avenue to implement electric spring effectively. In this paper, a new control scheme is presented for the implementation of electric spring, in conjunction with non-critical building loads like central air conditioning system. This control scheme would be able to provide power factor correction of the system, voltage support, and current balance for the critical loads, such as the building's security system, in addition to the existing characteristics of electric spring of voltage and power stability. Thus, the improvised control scheme opens new avenues for utilization of the electric spring to a greater extent by providing voltage and power stability and enhancing the power quality in the renewable energy powered microgrids.