Powerful reactive power compensation of a very large electric arc furnace

Electric Arc Furnaces (EAF) used for scrap melting are steadily growing in size and rating. At the same time, they appear as increasingly complex loads on feeding grids. In Turkey, a Static Var Compensator (SVC) rated at 0-330 Mvar has been commissioned in a green-field steel plant project based on scrap melting. The purpose of the SVC is reduction of network disturbances emanating from the operation of a very large EAF, as well as power factor correction of the plant. The EAF, rated at 300 MVA, is among the largest installed in a steel plant in the world. The SVC, also of a record-breaking size, was commissioned in 2011. The paper gives a brief introduction to the grid impact of electric scrap melting, some salient design features of this very large SVC, as well as a highlight of experiences from successful commissioning tests. Finally, the use of the SVC as part of a grid power oscillation damping scheme is introduced.