What are the applications of STATCOM?
As a high-voltage reactive power compensation device, STATCOM can play its versatility in various scenarios. This article explains its application in distribution lines and industrial environments. Let’s take a look at its advantages in these application scenarios.
Industrial user applications
Power Quality Improvement: Industrial facilities such as steel plants often face loads that introduce significant voltage fluctuations and generate harmonics. These devices can effectively mitigate these disturbances by quickly supplying or absorbing reactive power, thereby significantly improving power quality and reducing harmonics, thanks to their inherent filtering capabilities.
Imbalance Correction: Featuring a delta connection configuration, these devices are particularly effective at correcting phase-to-phase imbalance, a common challenge in load asymmetric environments. This is critical to prevent abnormal operating conditions and protect sensitive equipment.
Flicker reduction: The operation of electric arc furnaces and energy-demanding machinery can cause rapid and severe load fluctuations. The device intervenes to counteract these effects, stabilizing the voltage and thus improving visual stability and performance of sensitive equipment.
Power Factor Improvement: In the industrial environment of steel mills, optimizing power factor is not only an energy efficiency issue but also an economic one. By improving power factor, you can minimize penalties imposed by utility companies and maximize the efficiency of electrical energy utilization.
Transmission Line Applications
Real-time Voltage Control: The devices are essential for dynamic voltage control in transmission systems, which is critical to keeping operations within safety and efficiency limits.
Grid Stability: They help maintain system stability in the face of transient events, such as line outages or system failures, by providing immediate voltage support.
Transmission Capacity Extension: They allow for greater load transfer on existing lines by improving the voltage profile, which can delay or eliminate the need to build new transmission lines.
Transmission Loss Reduction: By optimizing reactive power flow, the devices can help reduce transmission line losses.
Other Applications
Power factor control and voltage regulation are in compliance with grid regulations. In the current environment, loads require fast and efficient solutions to avoid production interruptions, as well as to optimize performance and extend the service life of equipment used in different voltage levels of the electrical system.
Contribute to improving the reliability and stability of the power grid. Provide functions such as harmonic suppression, voltage stability, system balance, transient stability and system oscillation damping. These functions help reduce the risk of failures and improve power quality, which is essential to ensure the optimal operation of the power system.
STATCOM is widely used in various industries, such as: renewable energy parks, transmission and distribution systems, steel industry, mining, automotive and manufacturing. By integrating the device into the electrical system, compliance with national regulations and standards is achieved, the stability of the electrical system is improved, the equipment is integrated with the grid, the losses and operating costs in the process are reduced, and it helps to extend the service life of the equipment, thereby improving the efficiency and profitability of the industry.
