Experience with replacing rotating exciters with static exciters

Scottish Power and Scottish Hydro have completed the upgrade of the Anglo/Scottish interconnector from 850 MW to 1600 MW. This involved rebuilding the West Coast (Strathaven/Harker) line to allow one circuit to be operated at 400 kV (the other remained at 275 kV), and the installation of static excitation systems at Longannet and Hunterston power stations to improve generator stability under system fault conditions. This paper describes the installation and commissioning of the new excitation systems at Longannet