Dutch Steel Plant Uses Active Filters To Improve Energy Efficiency And Reduce Environmental Pollution

The Dutch government is committed to promoting sustainable development and energy efficiency, encouraging businesses to take measures to reduce energy consumption and environmental pollution. As a high energy consuming enterprise, if the steel plant does not use active filters to increase power loss, power factor reduction and other problems, it may be inconsistent with the energy policy objectives of the Netherlands. For example, the Dutch government has implemented an Energy Efficiency Action Plan to monitor and assess the energy efficiency of businesses. If the steel plant is inefficient in energy use due to harmonic and reactive power problems, it may be under certain pressure at the policy level, such as being restricted in applying for government subsidies and preferential policies, or being required to develop improvement plans and implement them.

A Dutch steel plant has a large number of nonlinear load equipment, such as electric arc furnace, rolling mill and so on. When the electric arc furnace melts raw materials such as scrap steel, there will be an arc between the electrode and the charge. The resistance of the arc is nonlinear, which makes the arc furnace produce a lot of harmonic current in the working process. These harmonic currents will be injected into the grid, resulting in grid voltage distortion. In the process of starting, braking and speed regulation, the motor of rolling mill also produces harmonics because of the frequency conversion speed regulation technology. For example, when the motor of the rolling mill is frequently accelerated and decelerated, the fast switching action of the power electronics in the inverter (such as IGBT, etc.) will produce high order harmonics. Grid voltage distortion can have an adverse effect on other electrical equipment in the steel plant. On the one hand, harmonics will cause additional losses to the motor, resulting in increased motor heating, reducing the efficiency and service life of the motor. For some precision electrical control equipment, such as PLC (programmable logic controller) and sensors in automated control systems, harmonics may interfere with their normal work, resulting in signal distortion, reduced control accuracy and even equipment failure. For example, harmonics may misjudge the digital signal of the PLC, affecting the process control of steel production. On the other hand, harmonics will also affect the accuracy of energy measurement, so that the steel mill's electricity bill accounting deviation, so they choose ARK in a number of active filter suppliers, active filter can detect harmonic current in the power grid in real time. Through the internal control algorithm, it can quickly generate the compensation current equal to the harmonic current and opposite the direction, and cancel the harmonic current. For example, the active filter can accurately detect the 3, 5, 7 and other high order harmonics produced by the electric arc furnace, and generate the corresponding compensation current within a few milliseconds, effectively purifying the power grid, reducing the harmonic content of the power grid to the range allowed by national standards, thereby reducing the damage of harmonics to electrical equipment. After the active harmonic filter cabinet is started, the harmonic content of the system side is significantly reduced, showing an obvious mitigation effect. In addition, the noise of the transformer is also significantly reduced. What's more, according to feedback from the electrical manager, all capacitors were operating normally and no damage was reported.