This paper discussed a transformer-less shunt static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) with consideration of the following aspects: fast compensation of the reactive power, harmonic cancelation and reducing the unbalancing of the 3-phase source side currents. The STATCOM control algorithm is based on the theory of instantaneous reactive power (P-Q theory). A self charging technique is proposed to regulate the dc capacitor voltage at a desired level with the use of a PI controller. In order to regulate the DC link voltage, an off-line Genetic Algorithm (GA) is used to tune the coefficients of the PI controller. This algorithm arranged these coefficients while considering the importance of three factors in the DC link voltage response: overshoot, settling time and rising time. For this investigation, the entire system including the STATCOM, network, harmonics and unbalancing load are simulated in MATLAB/SIMULINK. After that, a 35KVA STATCOM laboratory setup test including two parallel converter modules is designed and the control algorithm is executed on a TMS320F2812 controller platform.