Reactive Power Management Practices and their Comprehensive Evaluation for a Short Circuit Test Plant

A vast majority of electrical loads in short circuit testing plants are inductive rapidly varying in nature. Typical examples are motors, transformers, drives etc. Such loads consume high reactive power in short durations. Load requirement of the short circuit plant is intermittent in nature due to varieties of customer tests. Hence controlling of reactive power of these types of loads is a challenge. It is therefore necessary to reduce and manage the fl ow of reactive power to achieve higher efficiency of the short circuit plant and reduction in cost of electricity consumed. An improvement of the reactive power management of an installation presents several technical and economic advantages, notably in the reduction of electricity charges. This paper discusses a cost effective method of reducing and managing reactive power. It has been shown that the installed reactive power compensating devices captured both the technical and economic aspects of short circuit plant operation in competitive electricity markets. Also it has been shown that traditional techniques are economically viable if they are used in a judicious manner.