Use of shunt & series capacitors in

transmission lines

INSTRUCTED BY: Mrs.

Selvarasa

Name: H.M. Gunasekara

Index No.: 070149c
Field: Electrical
Date of per: 23/09/2009
Date of sub: 07/10/2009
CALCULATIONS

Per Unit compensation of the line =

Sample calculation

Series capacitance = 6uF

Series capacitive reactance =
= (because =2 f )
= 530.79 Ω
Inductive reactance = Lω
= 0.15×
= 47.1 Ω

Per Unit compensation of the line =530.79/47.1

=11.27

series capacitance capacitive

(uF) Power (W) reactance (Ω) PU value
6 5 530.79 11.27
12 15 265.39 5.63
18 25 176.93 3.76
24 20 132.70 2.82
30 25 106.16 2.25

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RESULTS

Power received Vs. series capacitance

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Power received Vs. shunt capacitance

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Power received Vs. PU compensation of the line

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DISCUSSION

1. Effect of power factor on the power system.

Power factor is the ratio between real power and apparent power. A low power factor tells
you that the system is demanding more power than the amount it consumes to operate. This
causes reactive energy to flow back and forth wasting energy as losses in transmission lines.
Therefore having a power factor close to unity is desirable.

In industrial usage electricity is charged separately for the power factor. If the system has a
lower pf it will require a bigger capacity energy supply. Therefore the charge will be high. So
industrial consumers are advised to maintain a pf higher than 90%.

2. Usefulness of shunt capacitors in improving power factor of load.

Most of the time industrial loads are inductive. Therefore when a lot of inductive loads are
coupled the power factor becomes undesirably low. Inductive loads make the current lag the
voltage. Capacitive loads make the current lead the voltage. To compensate for the lagging
current, a capacitor bank is connected in parallel to the load. The capacitor bank adjusts to
make the power factor of the system close to unity as the load varies. This will lower the
energy loss due to reactive energy and will also minimize the industrial users’ energy bill by
lowering the maximum demand value.

3. Effects of series and shunt capacitance.

Shunt capacitance

This is the normal method of adding capacitors to the system. The rating of the capacitor will
be a little higher than the voltage.

Series capacitance

Even though this method gives a good voltage regulation it has many disadvantages. For a
certain capacitor value the system could resonate. In such conditions the impedance of the
system becomes very low. Very high currents can pass through the system and it could
damage the equipment connected.

In short circuit conditions the capacitor should be able to withstand high currents. This will
not be as economical as using shunt capacitors.

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 4. Other methods to improve power factor.

Synchronous motor

An unloaded synchronous motor connected to the grid will act like a variable capacitor. It can
be adjusted to the required amount of correction.

Filters

Some loads cannot be directly connected to capacitors because harmonics exist in the wave
form. Filters are used to cut out the unwanted frequencies and then only the capacitors are
connected. It is possible to achieve near unity power factors through this method.