What is reactive power compensation?

Once the problems of reactive power generation, transmission and distribution have been exposed, we will proceed to describe the actions that the customers can adopt in order to avoid or minimize the corresponding penalization in the electricity bill. These actions are covered by the denomination ‘reactive power compensation’.

Can synchronous compensators compensate reactive power?

Instead of using capacitor banks, there is a different alternative to compensate the reactive power that is based on the use of synchronous compensators. These are synchronous machines that, operating with null active power, can behave either as variable capacitors or coils, by simply changing their excitation current .

Why are harmonic filters used in reactive power compensation systems?

While redesigning the reactive power compensation systems for the factories, the decision was made that harmonic currents shall be absorbed on the transformers they are produced thus harmonic filters should be used. The reactive power, number of branches and tuning frequencies of the filter capacitor banks were designed according to load

How does reactive power affect the capacity of a generator?

Therefore, taking into consideration the basic Equation 1, we can conclude that, for a certain apparent power S, the higher the reactive power (Q) to be generated (in order to the supplied to the customers), the lower the active power (P) that the generator can produce. In other words, the generation of Q limits the capacity of generating P.

What happens if you use capacitors without a reactor?

Resonance conditions created by the use of the capacitors without reactors at the customer’s facilities will lead to high distortion on the low voltage bus where the capacitors are connected on. Problems like motor overheating, transformer heating and malfunction of the electronic equipment within the customer’s facilities are likely to occur.

How much voltage distortion is allowed in a capacitor bank?

Nokian Capacitors Ltd. P.O. Box 4 Tampere Finland Tel: +358-3-388311 Fax: +358-3-3883360 5th 7th 11th 100% 80 -90% 10 - 20% 11kV 150MVA 50Hz 400V Figure 10. Reactive power compensation with filter capacitor banks. According to IEEE 519-1992 individual voltage distortion is allowed to be 3% of the fundamental.