Field Measurements at an Important Steelworks and Development of a ±250 Mvar Static Reactive Compensator (SVC) Model

This paper presents measurements performed in an important steelworks in Argentina, equipped with electric arc furnaces, and the development of a complete model of a ±250 Mvar SVC. The model includes each of the different components of the SVC (harmonic filters, thyristor controlled reactor (TCR) and control system) and is particularly useful to analyze and evaluate the following aspects of the installed SVC: the dynamic behavior and response speed, the inconveniences associated with the loss of firing pulses in the thyristors (stresses to which the different components of the SVC are subjected), the circulating currents in each of the components of the harmonic filters and the reactors that make up the TCR, the improvement in compensation of the flicker produced by the arc furnaces and its performance under different operating conditions of the electric arc furnaces. To validate the model's performance, measurements taken at the steelworks were compared with the results obtained from the model under similar operating conditions. In all cases, a good match is observed between measurements and simulation results, both in the waveform of voltages and currents, as well as in their levels and the relative phase shift between them. The main results obtained are documented in this paper.