Virtual Instrument for Single-Phase Control of Three-Phase Reactive Power Capacitive Compensators

Abstract

This chapter proposes the use of LabVIEW in a very common application both in the field of power engineering technical education and in the industrial environment. It is about compensating the reactive power with the aim of increasing the power factor. Capacitive reactive power compensators for this purpose are provided with compensation steps. The connection and disconnection of these steps according to the load curve of the consumer and the power factor at which it operates are done by means of programmable controllers. Most capacitive compensators are designed to be connected balanced to the three-phase network, in delta connection. In the situation when the reactive capacitive compensators are designed for both power factor improvement and load balancing, single-phase connection of capacitor steps is needed. The chapter proposes a LabVIEW virtual instrument that, by means of National Instruments equipment, is designed for operating condition monitoring and single-phase command. The virtual instrument was tested in the laboratory on a model consisting of a RL consumer with step-adjustable inductive component and a step-adjustable capacitive compensator. The National Instruments hardware equipment used, the modeled consumer, and its related capacitive compensator are presented. Special attention, with details of realization, is given to the virtual instrument architecture.