IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 22, NO.
3, JULY 2007
Power-Flow Control Performance Analysis
of a Unified Power-Flow Controller in a
Novel Control Scheme
Liming Liu, Pengcheng Zhu, Yong Kang, and Jian Chen, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—In this paper, real, reactive power, and voltage bal-
ance of the unified power-flow control (UPFC) system is analyzed.
Two important results related to UPFC control are shown in this
paper. First, the shunt converter provides all of the required reac-
tive power during the power-flow changes if the UPFC bus voltage
is constant. Second, the UPFC bus voltage can be controlled both
from the sending side and from the receiving side. Based on the
analysis, a novel coordination controller is proposed for the UPFC.
The basic control strategy is such that the shunt converter controls
the transmission-line reactive power flow and the dc-link voltage.
The series converter controls the transmission-line real power flow
and the UPFC bus voltage. The real/reactive power coordination
controllers in the UPFC control system can obtain good perfor-
mance both during transient and stable conditions. Experimental
works have been conducted to verify the effectiveness of the pro-
posed control strategy.
Index Terms—Novel control scheme, reactive power balance,
real power balance, series converter, shunt converter, unified
power-flow controller (UPFC), voltage balance.
I. INTRODUCTION
T HE unified power-flow controller (UPFC) is the most com-
prehensive multivariable flexible ac transmission (FACTS)
device. It is able to control, simultaneously or selectively, all
of the parameters affecting power flow in the transmission line
(i.e., voltage, impedance, and phase angle). Alternatively, it can
independently control both real and reactive power flow in the
transmission line. In some conditions, it also acts as a harmonic
isolator [1]. A small number of experimental prototypes have
been built and tested in labs [1], [2]. In 1998, American Elec-
tric Power (AEP) installed a 160-MVA UPFC at the Inez sub-
station in eastern Kentucky, which is the first practical imple-
mentation in the world [3]–[5]. Normally, a UPFC consists of
two voltage-source integrated (VSI) converters, which are con-
nected back to back through a dc link. One serves as a series con-
verter and the other serves as a shunt converter. The shunt con-
verter of the UPFC controls the UPFC bus voltage/shunt reactive
power and the dc-link voltage. The series converter of the UPFC
controls the transmission-line real/reactive power flow by in-
jecting a series voltage controllable both in magnitude and phase
angle. The interaction between the series-injected voltage and
Manuscript received January 27, 2006; revised July 3, 2006. Paper no.
TPWRD-00042-2006.
The authors are with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Huazhong
University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China (e-mail:
hyt_llm@sohu.com; zhu_pc1977@yahoo.com.cn; Ykang@mail.hust.edu.cn;
Jchen@mail.hust.edu.cn).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2006.886799
0885-8977/$25.00 © 2007 IEEE
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1613
the transmission-line current leads to real and reactive power ex-
change between the series converter and the power system. The
parallel converter provides the amount of real power required
by the series converter plus the losses of the UPFC conversion
system.
With its multifunction, the control scheme of the UPFC is
complex and meets many problems. To solve these problems,
some coordination control schemes are applied. In [6], the tran-
sient condition of a UPFC is analyzed and the dc-link capacitor
design is discussed. In [7], the series converter real power de-
mand is calculated and sent to the shunt converter as a compen-
sated signal to make the dc-link voltage constant during tran-
sient conditions, and the reactive power flow changes is added
to the shunt converter as a compensation signal to maintain the
UPFC bus voltage constant when power flow changes. In [8], a
comprehend control scheme of both phase-angle and cross-cou-
pling control is proposed for power-flow adjustment and ob-
tains good performance in a laboratory prototype. In this paper,
a new control scheme has been developed to avoid the insta-
bility/excessive loss of dc-link voltage and maintain the UPFC
bus voltage constant during transient conditions.
In contrast to the conventional control schemes as listed in
[1]–[8], the new control strategy selected for the UPFC is per-
formed a little different. When the shunt converter is controlled
to make the UPFC bus voltage constant, according to the anal-
ysis, it can be found that any increase/decrease in the transmis-
sion-line reactive power due to in-phase component of the series
voltage injected by the series converter causes an equal increase/
decrease in the shunt converter reactive power. In short, the
shunt converter supplies increasing/decreasing reactive power
in the transmission line. So a modified control strategy for the
UPFC can be developed. Here, the shunt converter is controlled
to make the dc-link voltage constant and output the reactive
power for reactive power-flow control, while the series converter
is controlled to maintain the UPFC bus voltage constant and
adjust the real power flow in the transmission line. With this
method, the UPFC bus voltage and transmission-line reactive
power can be controlled directly and better performance is ex-
pected compared to conventional control schemes.
In this paper, a UPFC control system that includes both the
shunt converter and the series converter has been designed and
its performance has been evaluated. Section II gives the analysis
of the UPFC system. Sections III and IV describes the control
scheme for the series and shunt part separately. The experiment
details of the UPFC are given in Section V. Section VI provides
the results of the experimental works with the proposed con-
troller. Brief conclusions are given in Section VII.
1614 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 22, NO. 3, JULY 2007

Fig. 1. Configuration of a UPFC based on two back-to-back three-phase converters.

II. ANALYSIS OF UPFC the power flow changes. That leads to the conventional control
scheme for the shunt converter of the UPFC. However, (4) pro-
A. Voltage Balance of the UPFC System vides a new method to control the UPFC bus voltage . It can
Fig. 1 shows the basic configuration of a UPFC. The UPFC is be seen from (4) that can be controlled by the series con-
inserted into the transmission line through a series transformer. verter output voltage as shown in (8) when the power flow
According to Fig. 1, the voltage balance can be established as changes

(1) (8)
(2)
where is the receiving-end voltage variation on the
If the -axis is in phase with the UPFC bus voltage and
-axis. Ordinary will not change greatly during the trans-
the -axis is in quadrature with , a new voltage balance in
mission-line power-flow variation. So in the stable condition,
synchronous rotating – frame can be expressed as follows: (8) can be simplified as
(3) (9)

(4) Equation (9) indicates that should be proportional to the

variation of to maintain constant. So can be con-
where trolled to make constant when the power flow changes.

power system angular velocity; B. Real Power Balance Analysis

sending-end transmission-line inductance; The power balance of the UPFC system is investigated as
receiving-end transmission-line below.
inductance. For real power balance
In most of the conditions, the UPFC bus voltage amplitude is
maintained constant when UPFC control the power flow [3]–[5]. (10)
Ordinary is small and does not vary greatly. Equation
(3) indicates that should not change to make constant where
because
sending-end output real power;
(5) real power absorbed by the shunt converter;
real power output by the series converter;
And in the same - frame real power flow from the UPFC to the receiving
end.
(6) According to the instantaneous power theory, (10) can be
transformed to
So, to make constant when varies, it should meet the
following condition: (11)

(7) where means the dot product of two vector.

To make the UPFC dc-link voltage constant, it should meet
where and are the -axis component variation of the conditions in (12)
the receiving-end current and the shunt converter current ,
when the power flow changes. It can be inferred from (7) that (12)
the shunt converter should provide corresponding reactive cur-
rent to maintain the UPFC bus voltage constant when where is the loss of the UPFC conversion system.

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LIU et al.: POWER-FLOW CONTROL PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS 1615

According to (11) and (12), (10) can be transferred to (13) C. Reactive Power Balance Analysis
According to Fig. 1, the reactive power balance can be written
as
(13)

Equation (13) indicates that the sending-end power source (21)

generates all of the real power for transmission and system loss.
According to (2), it can be shown where
sending-end output reactive power;
(14) reactive power consumed by the sending
transmission line;
reactive power absorbed by the shunt part of
Equation (14) can be simplified as the UPFC;
reactive power output by the series part of the
(15) UPFC;
reactive power flow from the UPFC to the
receiving end.
Equation (15) indicates that when and do not vary, Using the instantaneous power theory, (21) can be transferred
only can be used to control the transmission real power. to (22)
However, for the system shown in Fig. 1, the condition is a bit
more complex (22)

Through the same transformation as mention before, the new

(16) equation in – frame can be induced

Putting (5) into (16), it can be shown as

(23)

(17) where . Substituting (3) into (23), we can get

(24)
If and do not vary, then the transmission real power
variation can be calculated as When power flow changes and maintains constant, then
and (7) are established. So we can obtain a new
equation when there is power-flow variation

(18)
Transfer (18) to the synchronous rotating - frame (25)

where is the reactive power absorbed

by the shunt part of the UPFC when transmission power flow
(19) changes; and
Equation (19) indicates that the transmission real power vari- is the reactive power absorbed by the series part of the
ation is related to many variables. When the series converter UPFC when transmission power flow changes.
output voltage is utilized to control , because (8) Equation (25) indicates that if do not change, then the
indicates that will cause variation of , is con- shunt part of the UPFC provides the variation part of reactive
trolled to manipulate . So in the control scheme, is power absorbed by the series part and transmission reactive
controlled to change . power variation. Also, (25) indicates that the transmission re-
On the other hand, transferring the variables into the same active power flow can be controlled by or .
- frame as listed above and using (3), then (12) and (13) can be
D. Discussion

(20) It can be concluded from the analysis above that there are two
kinds of solutions to reach the control goals of obtaining proper
power-flow control and maintaining the UPFC bus voltage con-
where means the real power absorbed by stant. One is to control the real power flow with and re-
the series part of UPFC. Equation (20) indicates that should active power flow with , while maintaining the UPFC bus
vary with to meet the active power balance of the UPFC. So voltage constant by adjusting the shunt converter output reactive
a forward component including can be added to the dc-link current . The shunt converter real current is controlled
voltage controller of UPFC and make up a coordination con- to make UPFC dc-link voltage constant and maintain the real
troller. The details are given in the next section. power balance of the UPFC device. That is, the conventional

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1616
Fig. 2. Shunt converter control system diagram in the d–q frame.
Fig. 3. Series converter control system diagram in the d–q frame.
method is applied in the previous papers. However, according
to (7), (8), (19), and (25), a modified control scheme can be de-
veloped to reach the same control goal in a different way. Ac-
cording to (8) and (25), can be controlled to maintain the
UPFC bus voltage constant, and can be used to regulate
the transmission reactive power. Equation (20) indicates modi-
fied coordination control for dc-link voltage control. The rest of
the control system is the same with the traditional one. Since
transmission-line reactive power is controlled directly, better
dynamic response of transmission-line reactive power flow con-
trol is expected. Details of the proposed control diagram are
given in the next two sections.
III. SHUNT CONVERTER CONTROL SYSTEM
In the proposed control strategy, the shunt converter of the
UPFC controls the reactive power flow in the transmission line
and dc-link voltage. The control diagram for the shunt part of
the UPFC is shown in Fig. 2. The control scheme is composed
of two loops—the outer loop and the inner loop. The outer loop
generates the current reference with coordination control, while
the inner current loop makes the shunt converter output the nec-
essary currents. The control system is based on the synchronous
rotating – frame as mentioned before. The -axis current is
controlled to manage the dc-link voltage and balance the real
power of the UPFC. The -axis current is controlled to manage
the transmission-line reactive power flow. The decoupled con-
trol system [9] has been employed to achieve simultaneous con-
trol of the shunt converter input current. Coordination control
schemes are applied in both transmission-line reactive power
flow and dc-link voltage control to obtain better dynamic per-
formance. In the -axis coordination control scheme, is
added to the output of the dc-link voltage regulator through a
gain , and it delegates the real power absorbed by
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 22, NO. 3, JULY 2007
the series converter. In the -axis coordination control scheme,
the transmission-line reactive power-flow variation reference is
added to the reactive power-flow PI regulator output with a
gain . So the shunt converter can generate an appropriate
amount of reactive power to compensate the reactive power-flow
change with a quick response. Further, the inner control system
loops are fast-acting PI controllers and ensure fast supply of both
the series converter real power demand and the reactive power
needed for reactive power-flow control by the shunt converter.
IV. SERIES CONVERTER CONTROL SYSTEM
The series converter of the UPFC provides simultaneous con-
trol of the UPFC bus voltage and real power flow in the trans-
mission line. To do so, the series converter injected voltage is
decomposed into two components. The transformation is the
same as that used in shunt converter control. The -axis injected
component controls the UPFC bus voltage. The -axis-injected
component controls the transmission-line real power flow. The
detail of this control scheme is shown in Fig. 3. The whole con-
trol system is composed of two loops as it is in the shunt con-
verter. The outer loop generates the reference voltage signals
for the inner loop with coordination control. A current feed-
forward is added to the -axis outer loop to compensate the
voltage changes across the line impedance when there is a power
flow change. The inner control loop is a typical voltage–current
double-loop control scheme for inverters. The same decoupled
control strategy as mentioned in [9] is applied here. With this
method, the UPFC bus can be controlled directly and good per-
formance is expected.
V. EXPERIMENTAL CONFIGURATION OF A UPFC
An experimental UPFC system has been built to test the pro-
posed control scheme as shown in Fig. 1. Recent advances in
LIU et al.: POWER-FLOW CONTROL PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS 1617

TABLE I
CIRCUIT PARAMETERS OF THE UPFC SYSTEM

high-voltage IGBT technology allow for higher switching fre-

quency with lower loss, and this allows for practical implemen-
tation of PWM control for high-power converters. So in the
experiment, both the shunt converter and the series converter
have been built as a three-phase PWM converter with IGBT
as the power device. The DSP TMS320F240 is selected as the
controller for both converters. The switching and sampling fre-
quency for the converters have been both chosen to be 5 kHz.
Both the shunt transformer and series transformer have a rating
of 7.5 kVA. The UPFC device is inserted into a transmission
line, and with the help of the UPFC, the power flow in the trans-
mission line can be controlled effectively while maintaining the Fig. 4. UPFC changes the line real power flow to +3 kW and back.
UPFC bus voltage constant. The parameters of the whole sys-
tems are given in Table I.
A series of experiments is employed to testify the control To maintain constant, the shunt converter absorbs about
scheme. All of the experimental result waveforms are recorded 2-kVAr reactive power , and the series converter output
by a Yokogawa DL750 scope recorder. The objectives for of about 2-kVAr reactive power to the line. That means
this experiment include the transmission-line real power flow the shunt part absorbs all of the reactive power output by the
( ), the transmission-line reactive power flow ( ), shunt series part to make constant and that leads to the amplitude
converter real power ( ), shunt converter reactive power of unaltered. The real power absorbed by the shunt
( ), series converter real power ( ), series inverter converter is 1 kW, and real power output by the series
reactive power ( ), UPFC bus voltage of phase A ( ), converter is about 800 W. That means the whole system loss is
and the transmission-line voltage of phase A controlled by the about 200 W.
series converter ( ), respectively, with UPFC in the proposed In Fig. 5, the UPFC is commanded to increase the line real
control scheme. power to kW, sustain it for a while, then decrease it to zero.
This is accomplished with about 180 phase shift of the injected
VI. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS voltage, which makes the voltage lag by about 30 . The
shunt converter absorbs -kVAr reactive power that fits the
A. Case 1. UPFC Changing Real Power (Figs. 4 and 5) series converter output very well. And the real power absorbed
This case starts with the UPFC holding the transmission-line by the shunt part meets the series part output active power with
real and reactive power flow near zero. The series converter reg- a little difference.
ulates to 220 V during the real power-flow change. The ob- Throughout this test, the UPFC bus voltage is tightly reg-
jective for this test is to maintain the and constant, ulated a 220 V and the transmission-line reactive power flow
while making big step changes in . The experimental re- stays constant as zero.
sults are shown in Figs. 4 and 5.
In Fig. 4, the UPFC is commanded to increase the line real B. Case 2. UPFC Changing Reactive Power (Figs. 6 and 7)
power to 3 kW, sustain it for a while, and then decrease it to zero. The initial conditions for this test are similar to the case 1.
It does this by injecting a voltage in series to the transmission The objective of the test is to regulate the UPFC bus voltage at
line that makes the voltage leads about 30 ahead. 220 V and keep constant while making large steps in .

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1618
Fig. 5. UPFC changes the line real power flow to 03 kW and back.
In Fig. 6, the UPFC reference for is changed from 0 to
2 kVAr then back to zero. The shunt part absorbs 3-kVAr
reactive power. The series part provides 1 kVAr. That means
the shunt part provides all of the necessary reactive power for
the transmission and series part. To maintain constant, the
injected voltage in series to the transmission line makes de-
crease to 136 V but in phase with . The shunt part absorbs
1-kW active power from the power system, and the series out-
puts active power is 800 W. The same system loss is shown as
in Fig. 4.
In Fig. 7, the reference is taken from 0 to 3 kVAr. In
this condition, the shunt converter absorbs about 2600 VAr and
the series converter delivers 400 VAr. increases to about
281 V. The final step makes the reference return to zero.
In this case, the shunt part absorbs 1 kW from the power system
and the series part outputs 500 W. The whole system loss is
about 500 W.
It is very interesting to note that the changes of shunt con-
verter reactive power change the line reactive power al-
most equally and effectively. It meets the analysis in Section II
perfectly. And it means that the shunt converter generates all of
the necessary reactive power for the transmission-line reactive
power-flow change and balances the reactive power output by
the series converter.
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 22, NO. 3, JULY 2007
Fig. 6. UPFC changes the line reactive power flow to +2 kVAr and back.
In all cases, the dc-link voltage changes very little, which
proves the effectiveness of the coordination control scheme in
real power balance. The amplitude of the UPFC bus voltage
chases the reference tightly during the power flow changes. It
can be observed that with the proposed control scheme, the re-
active power flow obtains better dynamic performance than real
power flow, and that is the advantage compared to the conven-
tional cross-coupling control scheme of UPFC.
VII. CONCLUSION
This paper has presented a novel coordination controller for
a UPFC. The basic control strategy is such that the shunt con-
verter of the UPFC controls the transmission-line reactive power
and the dc-link voltage. The series converter controls the trans-
mission-line real power flow and the UPFC bus voltage. The
contributions of this work can be summarized as follows.
Real, reactive power, and voltage balance of the UPFC system
are analyzed. Two important results related to the UPFC control
have been shown. First, it is indicated that the shunt converter
provides all of the required reactive power during the power flow
changes if the UPFC bus voltage is constant. Second, the UPFC
bus voltage can be controlled both from the sending side and
LIU et al.: POWER-FLOW CONTROL PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS
Fig. 7. UPFC changes the line reactive power flow to 03 kVAr and back.
from the receiving-end side. Inclusion of the real power coor-
dination controller in the UPFC control system avoids exces-
sive dc-link voltage excursions and improves its recovery during
transient conditions.
Experiments have been conducted to verify the effectiveness
of the proposed control strategy.
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Liming Liu was born in Jiamusi, China, on October
12, 1975. He received the B.S. degree in applied
electronics and the M.S. degree in power electronics
and electric drives from Wuhan University, Wuhan,
China, in 1998 and 2003, respectively. He is cur-
rently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in power electronics
and electric drives at Huazhong University of Sci-
ence and Technology, Wuhan.
Pengcheng Zhu was born in Wuhan, China, on June
19, 1977. He received the B.S. degree in applied elec-
tronics and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in power elec-
tronics and electric drives from Huazhong University
of Science and Technology, Wuhan, in 1999, 2002,
and 2005, respectively.
Currently, he is working with the GE China R&D
Center, Shanghai.
Yong Kang was born in Hubei, China, on October
16, 1965. He received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D.
degrees from Huazhong University of Science and
Technology, Wuhan, China, in 1988, 1991, and
1994, respectively.
In 1994, he joined Huazhong University of Science
and Technology as a Lecturer. In 1996, he was pro-
moted to Associate Professor. In 1998, he became
Full Professor. He is the author of many technical
papers. His research interest focuses on power-elec-
tronic converters, ac drives, electromagnetic compat-
ibility (EMC), and their digital control techniques.
Jian Chen (SM’96) was born in Wuhan, China,
on Aug 27, 1935. He graduated from Zhengzhou
Electrical Engineering School and the Department
of Electrical Engineering of Huazhong Institute of
Technology, Wuhan, in 1954 and 1958, respectively.
He has been with Huazhong Institute of Tech-
nology (now Huazhong University of Science
and Technology) since 1958. He was promoted to
Lecturer in 1963 and Associate Professor in 1978.
He has studied power electronics, microprocessors,
and their applications at the University of Toronto
as a Visiting Scholar from 1980 to 1982. In 1985, he became a Full Professor.
He is an author of three textbooks and many technical papers. His main
research interests include various power-electronic converters, ac drives, and
power-electronics applications in electric power systems.