AHF Reduces Flicker from Radiator Production

Today’s industry constantly faces new challenges. As the local community grows, large businesses with energy intensive production processes are faced with the challenge of reducing their effects on the grid. High flicker emission levels can potentially disturb other industries on the public grid.

Background

Flicker Level Before Compensation

The plant is a 55000 square meter radiator factory in Belgium, It consists of six production lines that in total can produce about 5000 radiators a day. The production process consists of presses, seam welding and spot welding. The process is inherently very energy demanding and so puts great demands on the power grid. These processes combined to create large voltage drops in the feeding substation with the result of too high Pst values. The problems at the plant caused flashing lights when the local utility company would connect other consumers to the same transformer.

Flicker Level After Compensation

Challenge

The local utility company demanded that the Pst 95% value could not exceed 0,7. Measured values during 2009 showed tops in the Pst equivalent to 1,6. Achieving this goal was no small feat due to the rapidly fluctuating load, and the many different load patterns that could occur with such a high number of welding machines.

Active Harmonic Filters – the Solution

The market leading response time for the active harmonic filter was a necessity for the customer to reach the values that the utility company demanded. The system consists of six units, making it a total of 2,1 MVAr continous power to compensate for the voltage drops.

Installation of Active Harmonic Filters Creates Results

After installing the active harmonic filters, the plant has managed to keep their Pst value below 0,63, regardless of how many welding lines are run simultaneously. The reference values have been measured by external consultants and approved by the local utility. As a side effect of the lowered flicker value, the plant now also enjoys stabilized production environment.