Performance Improvement of SVC Harmonic Filters for Electrical Arc Furnace using Sensitivity Analysis and Measurement Results

Electric Arc Furnaces which are used for melting and recovery of metals in steelmaking plants, due to the nature of the arc melting process, cause many power quality problems such as current and voltage harmonics, flicker, current and voltage unbalance, low power factor and etc. Static Var Compensator (SVC) is a suitable system for reactive power compensation and power quality improvement. To use SVC for improving power quality at arc furnace bus, it is necessary to determine the SVC harmonic filters parameters based on required reactive power for electric arc furnaces. Also, the order of harmonic filters which is specified must be proportionate with electric arc furnace harmonic current and total reactive power being distributed between harmonic filters. In this paper, the analysis and design of SVC harmonic filter parameters and necessary calculations are done to avoid parallel resonance. Also, using measurement data from voltage and current harmonics of a 200-ton Electric Arc Furnace obtained from several melting process, further tuning is done to improve design and performance of the harmonic filters.