Reactive compensation for AC electric arc furnace considering power quality constraints

A calculation method of reactive compensation configuration considering power quality constraints is proposed according to the power quality problems caused by AC electric arc furnace (EAF), including voltage fluctuation and flicker, three-phase unbalance and harmonic. Joint operation of static var compensator (SVC) and static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) is adopted to solve the problems above. Based on different sets of power quality requirement cases, three corresponding reactive compensation configuration schemes are given respectively. In order to verify the validity of this paper, a power supply system model of three-phase EAF is established according to the data of a certain EAF engineering project in Tianmen, Hubei province. The simulation shows that the proposed reactive compensation scheme can effectively solve the power quality problems caused by AC EAF and decrease the investment cost with good compensation effect, which significantly increases benefit of steel enterprises.