Electric arc furnace power modeling for STATCOM Controller Application

The nonlinear and time varying nature of electric arc furnaces (EAFs) creates flicker, harmonics, and voltage/current unbalances. Nowadays to improve the performance of EAFs and the power quality problems of electrical systems around them high speed compensators like STATCOM are needed. This paper uses a time domain model for electric arc furnaces and a new model is proposed for EAFs. Electric arc furnace and STATCOM using SIMULINK/PSB are investigated and simulated. Then, a network including EAF and STATCOM completely is simulated. Five typical arc furnace models from the time domain method are selected to study their effects on harmonic analysis. Simulation results are also provided. Comparisons between these results show the effects of different arc furnace models on voltage waveform and percentage of harmonic components distribution, which provides a discussion of the differences between time domain and frequency domain methods. Finally, recommendations are made for the application of some of these models.