THE OPTIMAL LOCATION OF RECLOSERS IN 10 KV AGRICULTURAL ELECTRICAL GRIDS

Abstract

The agricultural networks are spread over a vast territory with a total length of more than 947 thousand kilometers. Their branching significantly affects the reliability of electricity supply and its quality. Improving the reliability of agricultural networks is an urgent task. It is advisable to use devices that allow automatizing the process of managing the electric network. Approximately 60 percent of the time is spent searching for the damaged area and restoring power to consumers connected to the undamaged sections of the circuit, 40 percent is spent searching for the place of damage and carrying out repair and restoration work. (Research purpose) The research purpose is to determine the economic efficiency of installing reclosers in 10 kV electrical networks. (Materials and methods) The article considers examples of feeders before and after the partitioning switches. Optimization criteria were calculated for each option: annual undersupply of electricity; the number and duration of consumer outages. (Results and discussion) The article presents the calculations of the options, analyzes the results obtained. (Conclusions) In order to reduce the total annual undersupply of electricity, it is necessary to divide the outgoing line into separate sections by installing sectioning reclosers. In order to increase reliability, reclosers should be placed closer to the consumer. Due to the optimal installation of reclosers, there is a decrease in the number and duration of outages, and a decrease in the annual undersupply of electricity in the network by 52 percent. The use of reclosers in electrical networks of 6-10 kilovolts has proven to be a more effective method of increasing the reliability of power supply both technically and economically.