Comparison of application of SVC and STATCOM to large capacity transmission path of power system

Both SVC (Static Var Compensators) and STATCOM (Static synchronous Compensator) are important equipments of reactive compensation, which are comprehensively compared from the aspects of voltage supporting on fault, improving the transient stability limit, and damping low frequency oscillation. The simulation results show that when high capacity static reactive compensation device is placed on transmission path of electric power system and SVC and STATCOM are equipped on single nodes , firstly, SVC and STATCOM do not have excellent ability to support node voltage, but STATCOM does better than SVC; secondly, STATCOM is much better than SVC in improving the transient stability limit; thirdly, for controlling damping low frequency oscillation, STATCOM is superior to SVC as they have the same capacity, and performs similarly with SVC as the two have the same controllable scope. Lastly, dynamical response speed affects the control result little though STATCOM responses much faster than SVC.