Smart Load Shedding Designed for Unintentional Islanding of Steel Plants with Captive Generation

Iron and steel plants are bulk consumers of power and although, depend on the utility/grid for their operation and production, a captive power and blowing station with an inhouse power generation takes care of the emergency loads of the plant, in case of unintentional islanding. While safe Islanding would protect the generators and other ‘hot’ equipment, smart load shedding with judicious categorization of the loads would help continue the coke and hot metal production in the steel plant. This paper develops an Islanding and Load shedding philosophy for steel plants with the concept of matching of the generated power with the connected loads using a dynamic automation model. By ensuring power to the energy sources namely coke oven and Blast furnace continue to operate with the available power, the production of coke and hot metal shall also remain uninterrupted. The paper also presents a case study illustrating the implementation of the scheme beginning with categorizing the essential processes, prioritizing the loads and preserving the Island's power distribution stability. As these units are spaced over a large geographical area, the interplant electrical SCADA architecture is employed as a backbone for communication of the load shedding system.