IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 16, NO.

1, JANUARY 2001

53

Frequency Response of the Thyristor Controlled

Series Capacitor
Alireza Daneshpooy and A. M. Gole, Member, IEEE

AbstractThis paper introduces the application of a new

method based on Fourier series expansion, to derive the frequency
response of a thyristor controlled series capacitor (TCSC). The
theory and the numerical approach are presented and the results
are reported. Although this method is solely applied to the TCSC
device in this context, it is completely general and may well be
applied to any type of switched power devices. The analysis slows
the behavior of a TCSC at frequencies other than fundamental frequency. Such information is very important for sub-synchronous
resonance (SSR) as well as other harmonic related studies.
Index TermsAdvanced series compensator, FACTS, Fourier
series, frequency response, harmonics, small signal analysis, subsynchronous resonance, switched inductor, thyristor controlled series capacitor.

Fig. 1.

Mathematical model of the TCSC.

I. INTRODUCTION

DJUSTABLE series compensation has many benefits

for power transmission [1], with an emerging benefit
being an adjustable power stability limit for an ac transmission
system. The thyristor controlled series capacitor (TCSC),
often referred to as the advanced series compensator (ASC),
is a device capable of such operation. Numerous studies have
been conducted on the different aspects of this device such
as stability [2], or series compensation for an HVdc system
[3], or linearized models of TCSC based on Poincare Map
[4], [5] theory. The effects of closed loop control response to
harmonics or subsynchronous frequencies are not included in
this paper. This paper presents a numerical method to derive
the frequency response of the TCSC. It is hoped that this
frequency response characteristic will be useful in various
studies to determine the probability of undesired resonances
and sub-synchronous resonance (SSR). The aim of this paper
is to derive TCSC impedance, operating at the steady state, at
any harmonics including the fundamental. In other words for a
TCSC operating at 60 Hz, what is its impedance at say, 67 Hz.
The paper begins with a concise review in order to emphasize the main aspects of the TCSC. Then a method based on the
Fourier series expansion is presented, which is used to derive
the frequency response characteristic of the device. A simulation model for the TCSC is also developed in order to verify
the theoretical results. Finally the numerical results and their interpretation are reported. The effects of the closed loop control
Manuscript received May 29, 1998; revised May 10, 1999. This work was
supported by the National Science and Engineering Council (NSERC) of
Canada and the Manitoba HVDC Research Center.
A. Daneshpooy is with Silicon Power Corporation, Exton, PA.
A. M. Gole is with the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
Publisher Item Identifier S 0885-8977(01)02228-2.

Fig. 2. Simulation system used for verification.

response to harmonic or sub-synchronous frequencies are not

included in the course of this study.
II. OPERATION
The aim of this section, is to provide a concise introduction
of the operating basics of the TCSC. Much work has been done
in this field and the results are well documented, and references
will be made to the relevant literature throughout the context.
A TCSC can be envisaged as a controlled inductor in parallel with a fixed capacitor. The fundamental voltagecurrent
relationships for a controlled inductor connected to a sinusoidal
voltage source have well been developed [6], which was never
intended to be used for series compensation. But since the TCSC
is a series connected device, this approach is not applicable, and
it is more appropriate to consider a sinusoidal current source
) as the primary excitation. Fig. 1 shows
(
the equivalent circuit used in this section and through out the
context for the analysis, where the line current is assumed to be
pure sinusoidal.
In order to verify the results of this and the following sections,
a typical TCSC is simulated using the electromagnetic simulation program PSCAD/EMTDC. The components values and
the system rating are shown in the one-line diagram shown in
Fig. 2.
The system is based on 50% compensation of a typical transmission line for a 230 kV, 1000 MVA system.

08858977/01$10.00 2001 IEEE

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Fig. 3.

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 16, NO. 1, JANUARY 2001

Fundamental impedance of the TCSC.

Fig. 4. Harmonic voltages of TCSC.

The device voltage

, and the current through the inductor
are then calculated from the circuit equations. The derivation of these equations are not included for brevity, and can be
found in [7]. In these equations, is the firing angle, which is
measured from the zero crossing of the line current, and is the
conduction angle of the thyristor switches. The Fourier coeffi, are then calculated.
cients of the voltage across the device,
is used to
The fundamental Fourier coefficient of voltage
measure the device impedance. Following the same terminology
as used in [7], the fundamental impedance of TCSC is ( is the
system fundamental frequency):
where

(1)

(2)
An alternative formula which is simpler but less accurate can be
derived assuming an ideal voltage source as the primary excitation [6]. This formula is given below.

(3)

We compared (1) and (3) with the results from an emtp type
of simulation. Fig. 3 shows a comparison of the results and the
accuracy of (1) over (3) is clearly evident. The higher Fourier
are found as:
coefficients of voltage

Fig. 5.

TCSC voltage and current for two modes.

Similar results have been obtained using numerical methods

[8], however, here we have derived and presented an analytical
formula. Thus the TCSC behaves as an odd harmonic voltage
are shown in Fig. 4,
source in the system. The plots of
and as this figure shows, the harmonic voltages are negligible,
only the third harmonic has the highest contribution.
Equation (1) becomes infinite at conduction angle , where
. At this operating point the TCSC is in resonance (parallel resonance), and its reactance is infinite. For the
the TCSC behaves as a capacitor (caconduction angles
behaves as an inductor (inductive
pacitive mode) and for
mode). Fig. 5 shows the voltage and current plots for inductive
and capacitive modes of a typical TCSC device derived from the
simulation under the steady state condition.

for
III. FREQUENCY RESPONSE ANALYSIS
where:

(4)

Power systems encompass a wide range of apparatus and

components from the generation point, through the transmission
and finally to the point of consumption. Traditionally, the steady
state behavior of these components has been studied, however
their behavior at frequencies other than fundamental is also of
great interest. The frequency response of the components enables us to analyze these components interaction with one another and many other operational details such as the presence

DANESHPOOY AND GOLE: FREQUENCY RESPONSE OF THE THYRISTOR CONTROLLED SERIES CAPACITOR

55

Fig. 7. A portion of the discrete frequency spectrum.

These frequencies are related by the relationship

.
and the voltage
can be expanded in
Thus the current
the following complex Fourier series:

(7)
Fig. 6. Switching modeling by time-variant resistor.

of undesired resonance conditions. Usually this study refers to

small signal analysis for harmonics currents and voltages. For
the sake of this study the harmonics are assumed to be sufficiently small so that they do not interfere with the TCSC operation, or in other words do not alter the thyristors steady-state
turn-on and turn-off instants.
A. Theory
As discussed in Section II, a TCSC operating with fundamental frequency rad/sec, behaves as a switching inductor
rad/sec in parallel with a
with the switching frequency of
fixed capacitor.
The small signal harmonic source is modeled as a parallel curwhere frequency
rad/sec is
rent source
the harmonic frequency under consideration. Assuming that in
the small signal approach the linearity principle is still valid, the
effect of this current source can be investigated once the other
supplies are set to zero. It should be emphasized that although
the other sources are reduced to zero, the thyristor switching instants are still determined by the fundamental frequency voltage
and current. The thyristors can be represented by a time varying
with frequency
rad/sec. This resistor
resistor
or very large
is assumed to be either very small
when the thyristor switches are on or off respectively (in fact
the emtp type solution [9] uses the same approach for simulating
is assumed to be zero and
the thyristors). The value for
equal to is shown in Fig. 6. This piecewise linear resistor [as
shown in Fig. 6(b)] can be modeled with the Fourier series as:

, are complex Fourier coefficients at frequency

Here , and
, and
, and
, are the complex Fourier coefficients at
. We refer to the complex Fourier coefficients ,
frequency
, as the phasor currents and voltages at
. Since the
and
and voltage
are real signals, the phasors are
current
, and
, where the bar operator
related by
stands for complex conjugate.
The following plot shows a portion of the frequency spectrum
. Fig. 7 typically shows the phasor
of the device voltage
amplitudes of at different frequencies (these amplitudes are not
necessarily equal).
As an example assume a 47 Hz harmonic current source injected to a 60 Hz TCSC system. The voltages that appear across
the TCSC terminals are of frequencies 120 m 47 and 120 m
47 Hz. Thus beside the 47 Hz voltage, a 73 Hz voltage appears
in the system too. This harmonic coupling as presented in (6) is
an important aspect of the switched devices such as TCSC.
For some harmonics, these different frequencies may coincide, the condition which has to be carefully considered in numerical calculation. If the harmonic frequency is equal to the
, the frequencies
and are equal to
rated frequency
, which implies that the corresponding volt ages and currents are 60 Hz also. In fact this is the case for harmonic frequencies equal to the odd multiples of fundamental frequency.
The voltage equation for the inductor in series with the time
can be written as:
variant resistor
(8)
The above equation in the frequency domain takes the form [the
becomes a convolution summation]:
product term

(5)
and the
With the harmonic current source at the frequency
( being the fundaparametric resistor at frequency
mental frequency) and its harmonics, the steady state solution
for the branch voltage and current contains frequency components at [10]:
for all integers

(6)

(9)
In addition, writing the Kirchoff current law equation we get:
(10)

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 16, NO. 1, JANUARY 2001

[Note the current into the capacitor is given by the convolution

and the capacitor impulse response
of the capacitor voltage
.]
In order to write (10) in frequency domain in terms of current
and voltage phasors, the left hand side of (10) is written as:

note
(11)
and the right hand side of (10) is written in terms of Fourier
series coefficients of the current and voltage from (7) as:

(12)
Equating the coefficients of exponentials in (11) and (12),
results:
Fig. 8. Voltage and current plots.

(13)

Equations (9) and (13) contain all the information necessary to

derive the current and voltage phasors. It is interesting to point
is involved, are exactly the
out that the equations in which
(i.e., the two sets are
same as the ones written in terms of
are
duals of each other). Thus only the equations involving
and
are
needed to be considered. Once the values for
and
can be used
derived, the equations
to derive the dual phasors.

In (14) only the first, middle and last equations

are
shown for the sake of brevity. The short form representation
for these matrices is also introduced for later reference in the
context.
Similarly (13) can be written in the matrix form as follows.

B. Numerical Results
The sets of equations derived from (9) and (13) are infinite
and . In order to solve these
sets of equations in terms of
sets of equations, it is then necessary to truncate these equation
sets by considering only the first equations in the sequence.
This could be justified mathematically by two facts:
approach
1) The Fourier series coefficients in (6) for
.
zero as rapidly as
2) The harmonics amplitudes in the system decrease with
.
Using the above approach (9) can be written in matrix form as:

(14)

(15)
[Note that all the matrices in (15) are diagonal.]
The vector is substituted from (14) into (15), and then the
resultant equation is solved for phasors . Substituting into
(14) the vector phasor is then determined.
In order to calculate the TCSC impedance at any frequency
, the voltage (from
and
) at frequency
should be
determined. The impedance of the TCSC at frequency is then
by the injected
achieved by dividing the resultant voltage at
current source .
This procedure is encoded using the MATLAB [12] numerical software, and the results are reported.
, current in the
As an example, Fig. 8 shows the plot of
and the voltage across the TSCS
.
controlled inductor
On the voltage plot [Fig. 8(c)], the equivalent sinusoidal voltage
is shown.
of frequency to

DANESHPOOY AND GOLE: FREQUENCY RESPONSE OF THE THYRISTOR CONTROLLED SERIES CAPACITOR

Fig. 9.

Voltage frequency spectrum for !

57

= 47 Hz.

Fig. 11.

Fig. 10. Frequency response for  = 90 .

Fig. 9 shows the frequency spectrum for the assumed TCSC at

Hz. This spectrum is achieved
harmonic frequency of
and
) versus
by plotting magnitude of phasor voltages (
the frequency range. The results of the calculation are then compared to the values derived from the simulation for some arbi.
trary conduction angle
In order to derive the points from the simulation, a harmonic
current source, at some known frequency, is injected into the
TCSC and the impedance of the device at that frequency
is derived from off-line FFT calculation. As mentioned earlier,
the analytical method presented in this paper is based on the
assumption that the injected harmonic does not introduce any
changes in the steady state firing instant and the conduction periods of the TCSC thyristors. This assumption is thus continued
to be reasonably justifiable.
As the plot of the resistance shows, at rated frequency (
Hz) the resistance drops to zero, a fact which was discussed
earlier Section III-A. This is due to the fact that at this specific
coincides with
and
coincides
frequency the voltage
. As a result the ratio of the sum of the voltages of
with
frequency to current has a sudden change at Hz, and the
device resistance reduces to zero at this specific frequency. Such
and other odd multiples of
a coincidence also takes place at
.
Fig. 11 shows the impedance plots for the assumed TCSC.
The three plots in this figure are the resistance, reactance and
impedance for the given TCSC for three different conduction
angles.

Frequency response for different conduction angles.

A close look at the second plot in Fig. 11(b), shows that the
reactance of the TCSC at the line frequency 60 Hz for different
conduction angles, are equal to the value derived from (1). In
addition, the resistance of the TCSC which is entirely a positive
number for all frequency range, drops to zero at 60 Hz, as discussed earlier.
As an example, by inspecting (1), it is found that the device
at frequency 60 Hz for the
acts as a pure capacitance of
, but it is interesting to note that it
conduction angle
behaves as a large resistance in series with a small inductance
Hz for the same
at sub-synchronous frequency, say
conduction angle. This observation is particularly important for
analysis of sub-synchronous frequency oscillations, where the
damping of the sub-synchronous frequency may be important.
(Note that an electrical frequency of 47 Hz corresponds to a
Hz on
potential sub-synchronous frequency of
the mechanical side.)
Generally, it can be concluded that, compared to the rated
frequency (and its odd multiples), where the TCSC impedance
has only an imaginary part (capacitive or inductive), at all other
harmonics, the TCSC impedance has both real (resistive) and
imaginary parts. In addition, it was observed that the real part of
impedance is always positive, and the device does not show negative damping at tiny frequency. However for frequencies higher
than the rated (super-synchronous), the frequency response fol, as the capacitance dominates of
lows the fixed capacitor
the parallel inductor, and the reactance; follows the fixed capaccharacteristic, as shown in Fig. 11(b).
itor
The impedance of the series compensation plays an important part in the sub-synchronous resonance oscillation. The presented analysis and study in this paper is an integral part of such
studies for the systems including TCSC. Since the method is
quite general irrespective of the device topology, such an analysis can be extended to shunt compensation and other power
electronics devices.

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 16, NO. 1, JANUARY 2001

IV. CONCLUSION
A novel approach based on Fourier Series representation of
the switched nonlinearities, has been presented for deriving the
frequency response of a TCSC. The method uses the Fourier
series representation for the switching operation of the TCSC.
Based on the assumption that the device steady state performance would not be changed upon the injection of small signal
harmonic current, the equations and the numerical approach
to solve the equations are presented. The results show for the
common operating mode of the TCSC (capacitive mode), the
device shows some positive resistance for subsynchronous frequencies, however it behaves as a capacitor (equal to the fixed
parallel capacitor) for super-frequency operation. These results
are useful in analyzing undesired resonances or in SSR studies.
The method is quite general and may well be extended to
other power electronic applications. Such an application is beyond the scope of this paper.
REFERENCES
[1] E. W. Kimbark, Improvements of system stability by switched series
capacitors, IEEE Trans. PAS, vol. 85, no. 2, pp. 180188, Feb. 1966.
[2] S. G. Jalali, R. A. Hedin, M. Pereira, and K. Sadek, A stability model
for the advanced series compensator, IEEE Power Deliver, vol. 11, no.
2, pp. 11281135, Apr. 1996.
[3] K. Sadek, M. Periera, D. P. Brandt, A. M. Gole, and A. Daneshpooy, Capacitor commutated converter circuit configuration for
DC transmission, in IEEE Winter Meeting, Tampa, FL, Feb. 1998,
PE-045PWRD-0-12-1997.
[4] H. Othman and L. ngquist, Analytical modeling of thyristor controlled series capacitors for SSR studies, IEEE Trans. on Power Systems, vol. 11, no. 1, Feb. 1996.

[5] S. Jalali, R. Lassester, and I. Dobson, Dynamic response of a thyristor

controlled series capacitor, in IEEE/PES Winter Meeting, New York,
NY, Feb. 1994.
[6] L. Gyugyi and E. R. Taylor, Characteristics of static, thyristor controlled shunt compensators for power transmission system applications,
IEEE Trans. PAS, vol. 99, pp. 13291338, Mar..
[7] N. Christl, R. Hedin, K. Sadek, and S. M. McKenna, Advanced series compensation (ASC) with thyristor controlled impedance, Cigre,
14/37/38-05, Sept. 1992.
[8] S. G. Helbing and G. G. Karady, Investigation of an advanced form of
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[9] EMTDC Users Guide: Manitoba HVDC Research Center, 1986.
[10] E. S. Kuh and R. A. Rohrer, Theory of Linear Active Networks:
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[11] E. S. Kuh, Theory and design of wide-band parametric converters,
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[12] MATLAB Reference Guide: Mathworks, 1992.

Alireza Daneshpooy obtained B.Sc. and M.Sc. from Tehran University (Tehran,
Iran), in 1989 and 1991, respectively, both in electrical engineering, and Ph.D.
from University of Manitoba (Winnipeg, Manitoba) in 1997. He started his career as a Design Engineer in switchgear industry. He is currently a Design Engineer with the Silicon Power Corporation (SPCO).

A. M. Gole received his B.Tech. (EE) degree from IIT Bombay, in 1978 and
Ph.D. from University of Manitoba, in 1982. He is employed as a Professor in
the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of
Manitoba. He is a registered Professional Engineer in the province of Manitoba
and a Member of the IEEE PES society.