Development of 2.5MVAR STATCOM for arc furnace applications

High power industrial loads such as, electric arc furnaces (EAF), variable frequency drives (VFD) are the main sources of power quality problems in steel plants. EAFs present rapidly varying, largely unbalanced, polluting and poor power factor load to power distribution network at the point of common coupling (PCC). Rapidly changing active and reactive power demand, causes voltage drop across the impedance of the ac system which in turn results in voltage fluctuations and poor power factor at PCC. The fast dynamic response of the Static Synchronous Compensator (STATCOM) makes it an ideal choice for solving power quality problems caused by EAF. Neutral Point Clamped (NPC) Voltage Source Converter (VSC) based 2.5 MVAR STATCOM has been developed and installed at foundry shop, Bhilai Steel Plant for mitigation of voltage flicker caused by EAF and compensation of reactive power drawn by EAF. This paper presents the development and performance of the developed STATCOM with the recorded data.