Comparison of some active devices for the compensation of DC arc furnaces

DC arc furnaces are more and more applied in large industrial systems. They represent a source of perturbations for the feeding system, in dependence on the available short-circuit power at the point of common coupling and on the arc furnace rating. This work deals with the problem of the compensation of perturbations caused by the DC arc furnaces operation; in particular, a comparison among several active compensation devices is made. The devices under consideration are active filters, STATCOM's and decoupled compensators. The study is performed with reference to a typical DC arc furnace and by using computer simulations developed by means of power system blockset. Waveform distortions and voltage fluctuations indices are assessed in absence and in presence of the compensation devices and compared each other. Finally, the results obtained with the active devices are compared with the ones obtained with a passive filtering system.