Series Transformer Inrush Current Reduction in DVR Using Metaheuristic Optimisation Algorithms in Presence of Balanced and Unbalanced Voltage Sags

The voltage drops in the distribution network is one of the most important power quality phenomena. At the voltage‐sensitive feeders, voltage drop even for a short period of time causes load interruption, therefore local solutions are necessary to improve voltage drops in these feeders. Dynamic Voltage Restorer (DVR) is used as a series compensation device in power distribution networks to eliminate instantaneous voltage drops. In this paper, a PI controller is improved for DVR to compensate effectively voltage drops and reduce the series transformer inrush current. The controller parameters are optimised using the modified arctic puffin optimisation (MAPO) algorithm in order to improve the performance of DVR. A medium voltage network with a voltage‐sensitive load is simulated in MATLAB environment. Besides, balanced and unbalanced voltage drops are considered in the presence of DVR. The simulation results show that the proposed method compensates balanced and unbalanced voltage drops quickly and effectively. At the same time, significantly reduces the series transformer inrush current. The harmonic distortion of the load voltage is also reduced in the presence of the proposed DVR and the power quality is improved. Also, the proposed results are compared with the other algorithms and references results.