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Overview of Voltage Sag Mitigation
Overview of Voltage Sag Mitigation
Overview of Voltage Sag Mitigation
Abstract: This paper gives an overview of methods used in the The magnitude of the voltage sag is mainly determined by
mitigation of voltage sags. Different solutions for improving the the impedance between the faulted bus and the load and by
performance of the power system, as well as the immunity of the the method of connection of the transformer windings [l].
equipment, are described. Finally, mitigation devices to be installed The voltage sag lasts until the fault is cleared by a protective
at the system-load interface for power quality enhancement are device, therefore the duration of the sag is determined by the
presented.
Keywords: voltage sags, power quality, electromagnetic fault-clearing time of the protection system adopted.
compatibility (EMC), distributionsystem design, power electronics Moreover, if automatic reclosure is used by the utility, the
\oltage sag condition can occur repeatedly in the case of a
I. INTRODUCTION permanent fault. Finally, depending on its magnitude and
duration, the sag can cause an equipment trip, thus becoming
Power quality and reliability are essential for proper a power qudity problem.
operation of industrial processes which involve critical and Based on the mechanism leading to a voltage sag (from
sensitive loads. Short-duration power disturbances, such as short-circuit fault to equipment trip, Fig. 2) three different
voltage sags, swells and short interruptions, are major “locations”, for the mitigation of voltage sags can be
concerns for industrial customers. Due to the wide usage of distinguished [2]: on the power system side or “upstream of
sensitive electronic equipment in process automation, even die meter”, on the equipment, “downstream of the meter”, or,
voltage sags which last for only few tenths of a second may finally, at the system-equipment interface, “at the meter”.
cause production stops with considerable associated costs;
these costs include production losses, equipment restarting,
damaged or lower-quality product and reduced customer Reduction of number and
SHORT-CIRCUIT FAULT duration of faults
satisfaction [ll.
The high costs associated with these disturbances explain
the increasing interest towards voltage sag mitigation
techniques. The cost of the mitigation intervention has to be
compared with the loss of revenue and takes into account all PROPAGATIONTHROUGH Changes in the structure
the economic factors involved. THE POWER SYSTEM of the power system
To understand the different ways of mitigating voltage
sags, various factors contributing to the problem have to be
understood. The cause of most voltage sags is a short-circuit
fault occurring either within the industrial facility under SYSTEM-EQUIPMENT Installationof
INTERFACE mitigation devices
consideration or on the utility system. The starting of large
motors also results in voltage sags, but these are not usually
very severe. The short-circuit fault causes the voltage to drop
I
to almost zero at the fault position. This zero voltage turns
then into an event of a certain magnitude and duration at the
interface between the power system and the equipment. A
typical voltage sag waveform is shown in Fig. 1.
I EQUIPMENT TRIP
Improvement of
equipment immunity
El
Fig. 7.Static Transfer Switch
(c) 2000IEEE
0-7803-5935-6/00/$10.00 2874
Improvement of equipment voltage tolerance thresholds
appears as the most effective solution against voltage sags in
the long term. This is especially true for short-duration and
shallow sags which can hardly be mitigated by means of the
utility-side solutions described above.
Unfortunately, customers can only require a specific
voltage tolerance level for very large industrial equipment,
and these are usually tailored for specific applications. In
most cases, the customer has no direct contact with the
manufacturer and can in no way intervene to modify DIODE RECTIFIER INVERTER
equipment sensitivity to voltage disturbances [2].
Hg.8. Scheme of an ac drive
A. Computers and process-control equipment The ac drive is normally set to trip either upon an
undervoltage on the dc bus or in the event of an overcurrent
The power supply of computers and other low-power through the diodes or on the ac side. Sometimes line-side
devices normally consists of a single-phase diode rectifier fuses blow because of (the high current on voltage recovery.
followed by a dc-dc voltage regulator. The latter transforms Assuming, however, that no protections trip the drive during
the non-regulated dc voltage at a few hundreds volts into a the sag, the process may not be able to tolerate the drop in
regulated dc voltage. A capacitor is connected to the non- speed or the torque variations due to the sag.
regulated dc bus in order to reduce the voltage ripple at the Improvements in drive performance can be obtained by
input of the voltage regulator. adding a series reactor to limit the post-sag inrush and by
If the RMS value of the ac voltage drops suddenly, the reducing the setting of the dc bus undervoltage protection
capacitor discharges not only for half a cycle, as in normal [123. Note that the latter needs to be co-ordinated with the
operation, but for a longer period, until its voltage drops protection and tolerance of the rectifier and the inverter.
below the ac value of voltage again, and a new equilibrium is However, it is generalIy accepted that the current design of
reached. The duration of the discharge of the capacitor is adjustable-speed drives does not leave much room for
directly dependent on the magnitude of the voltage sag. The improvement of the tolerance against balanced sags.
voltage regulator is normally able to maintain the output During unbalanced sags, the behaviour depends to a large
voltage constant over a certain range of variation of the input extent on the size of the dc bus capacitance. For a moderate
voltage. But if the voltage on the non-regulated side becomes capacitor size, the dc bus voltage will not drop very much
too low, the protection will trip the device to protect the during one half-cycle [2]. The result is that the minimum dc
digital electronic components on the other side of the bus voltage during the event is determined by the highest of
regulator. die three phase-to-phase supply voltages. It can be shown that
This can be a limiting factor in applying electronic the highest phase voltage is rarely below 80% of nominal
equipment for the automation of production lines: the boltage during an unbalanced sag. The dc bus voltage will
operation of a 120 V ac PLC U 0 unit, for instance, has been therefore rarely drop below 80%. [2].
reported to be disrupted by a sag of less than 86 % magnitude
and more than 16 ms duration [ 111. C. DC Drives
U
,
ENERGY
STORAGE
DEVICE
SENSITIVE
LOAD
lagging voltage in quadrature with the load current [17]. The
inverter is usually based on IGBTs characterised by high
switching frequencies: therefore, with proper control, it is
Fossible to perform perfect voltage compensation in less than
half a cycle.
POWER
SYSTEM
SENSITIVE
LOAD
r-l
VOLTAGE
SOURCE
INVERTER
the installation of only one device. However, sensitive loads
inside the plant will not be protected against sags originating
within the plant. Being a series device, this voltage controller
has the obvious disadvantage of not protecting the load
against interruptions[18].
U ENERGY
STORAGE
DEVICE
Fig. 14. Backup power source
The shunt-connected voltage controller [ 191) is a voltage-
source converter that is shunt connected to the distribution
$ d e r circuit via a tie reactance. It can exchange both real
and reactive power with the distribution system by varying
To avoid the losses due to the additional energy the amplitude and phase angle of the voltage source with
conversions in the UPS, a backup power source can be used respect to the line terminal voltage. The result is controlled
instead (Fig. 14). As soon as a disturbance is detected, the current flow through the tie reactance between the device and
sensitive load is isolated from the power system by a static tlie distribution line, which enables a certain voltage support
switch and supplied from the stored energy. For storing the capability.
necessary energy, either batteries (Transportable Battery The contribution of the shunt controller to the bus voltage
Energy Storage System, TBESS, [ 141) or small-sized
i:s equal to the injected current times the impedance seen by
Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage (SMES)systems, tlie device. This is the source impedance in parallel with the
which take advantage of the high efficiency of load impedance. This impedance becomes very small for
superconducting coils, can be used [U].The main advantages faults at the same voltage level, close to load. The device will
of the SMES as compared to the batteries are the reduced size then draw a very large reactive current without providing any
and lower maintenance requirements. noticeable change in voltage. For these reasons, a shunt
A series voltage controller consists of a voltage-source controller is normally used not for mitigating voltage sags,
converter connected in series with the distribution feeder by but for the implementation of other functions such as power
means of an injection transformer (Fig. 15). It can inject factor correction, the mitigation of load fluctuation (including
voltages of controllable amplitude, phase angle and frequency voltage flicker) and active filtering purposes [20].The same
into the distribution feeder, thus restoring the voltage to voltage source controller, equipped with an isolation switch
critical loads during sags [16].The reactive power exchanged for disconnection from the distribution feeder, results in the
between the series controller and the distribution system is backup source of Fig. 14.
internally generated by the controller, while the real power A very flexible device can be obtained by combining the
exchanged at its ac terminals must be provided at the dc above-mentioned series and shunt controller with a common
terminal by an energy storage system. Even without stored
dc bus. In the event of a voltage sag, the remaining voltage
energy, the series controller can provide limited can be used by the shunt controller to extract the energy
compensation for variations of terminal voltage by injecting a required for the compensation of the sag from the system.