Developing a Methodology to Reduce the Impact of High-Power Industrial Drives with FC-AR on the Supply Voltage Quality

Abstract

Modern high power adjustable electrical drives are based on synchronous and asynchronous motors and high voltage frequency converters with active rectifiers (FC-AR). FC-AR application is conditioned by a number of advantages in comparison with frequency converters with diode rectifiers, such as operation with power factor equal to unity, energy recovery into the supply network and better electromagnetic compatibility, due to the pulse width modulation (PWM) use to control the active rectifier keys. However, experience in operating FC-ARs has shown that they have a number of drawbacks, the most significant of which is strong voltage quality deterioration in the 6-35 kV network due to the imposition of high-frequency voltage and current harmonics of 40-50 AR on the resonant frequency response areas of the supply network. This drawback can be eliminated by developing optimal parameters for PWM AR algorithms to adapt to resonance phenomena in the supply network. Therefore, the actual task is to develop a methodology for calculating the optimal parameters of PWM algorithms through the use of specialized passive filters in in-plant supply networks, which provide a shift of the main resonance of currents to a zone free of high-frequency harmonics FC-AR.