Justification of STATCOM Systems Efficiency as an Objective of Improving the Quality of Electricity in a Mining Enterprise

A harmonic filter is used as a part of the skip hoist of the majority of mining enterprises in Russia. The voltage increases as the hoisting machine decelerates and decreases as it accelerates. The harmonic filter cannot compensate for voltage deviations, flicker or upper harmonics deviations. The use of a STATCOM-type dynamic compensation device instead of a harmonic filter enables voltage stabilization at various skip hoist loadings. A STATCOM device allows for a higher (design) speed of the skip. A 15% speed growth of the skip hoist with the STATCOM device connected to it significantly increases or extraction without any constructive changes of the machine if compared to the usual skip speed achieved with an HF operation. This study provided a comparative analysis of technical characteristics of FACTS devices such as capacitor banks, static VAR compensators, synchronous compensators, and STATCOMs. It was proved that STATCOM is the most effective means of voltage level stabilization to be used at a skip hoist. The main conclusions were based on the simulation modelling in the Matlab Simulink environment. The model focused on the influence of different operating modes of the hoisting machine on the level of reactive power consumption, voltage level and harmonic components coefficients in the power distribution network of the mining enterprise.