Electrical Protection of Synchronous Condenser 9

[sori]

Hello,
Our company is interested to change a synchronous generator 464 MVA to a synchronous condenser.
Do we need to change the generator electrical protections?
Thank you

 

[FreddyNurk]

With the increase in non-synchronous generation in networks there has been more interest in provision of 'system strength' services, where having the machine spinning but not necessarily importing or exporting a nominated quantity of VArs can be desirable. This is probably more applicable to a Generator that directly participates in an energy market rather than conversion of a synchronous motor to a condensor for what is normally only a consumer.

Such an arrangement is likely to assist both in terms of provision of fault current as well as frequency support through spinning mass.

I'm not really across the financial arrangements as to how the Owner gets compensated for the power losses involved or makes money from having the machine spinning, but I do expect it'll become more common with a larger mix of inverter driven wind and solar.

EDMS Australia

 

[Hoxton123]

Synchronous compensation with added inertia becoming more common in Europe as some renewables wind, battery etc have virtually no inertia to help recover from load swings

https://www.siemens-energy.com/glob...ansmission-systems/synchronous-condenser.html

 

[cranky108]

I was thinking we might get to a point of installing one because of decreasing fault currents.

 

[Hoxton123]

Our uk grid people tried a few years ago to get the small scale generation - cogeneration, CHP etc to increase their inertia ... at zero price increase ...

 

[waross]

With the increase in non-synchronous generation

I suspect that you mean "Low Inertia Generation".
As far as I know, most commercial wind and solar installations are synchronous, but low inertia.

Capacitor banks, whether static or rotational, have been common for decades, possibly a century.
Utilities use capacitors to improve power factors and thus free up equipment capacity and to mitigate line voltage drop on long lines, both distribution and transmission.
One of the more interesting projects that I worked on many years ago was installing capacitors in series with a transmission line.
The power source (Hudson Hope) was a long way from the utilization area (Vancouver and the Lower Mainland).
There were two transmission lines and each line had two capacitor stations.
In this case, the series capacitance offset the series inductive reactance that is a characteristic of long transmission lines.
The lines in question were rated to carry 2000 Amps as I recall.
The transmission voltage is 500,000 Volts.

--------------------
Ohm's law
Not just a good idea;
It's the LAW!

 

[davidbeach]

I think that would be synchronous, as in synchronous machines, vs. synchronized, as in any connected generation.

I’ll see your silver lining and raise you two black clouds. - Protection Operations

 

[crshears]

My Ontario, Canada utility has a pair of 500 kV circuits that run Sudbury to Woodbridge, with one set of series capacitors in each circuit, near Parry Sound.

They work great, when they work; but alas, it is not unknown for their behavior to be somewhere between temperamental and downright twitchy . . . but I digress way off topic.

Has it fallen out of favour to use grossly oversized synchronous motors to drive major plant loads with the balance of the motor's capability being employed in power factor correction? I thought I found mention of that earlier in this thread but cannot at the moment see where.

CR

"As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another." [Proverbs 27:17, NIV]