Capacitor Bank Operations

What is capacitor bank?

What is their purpose?
Where they are used?
Why they are used?
How to control Capacitor banks
Why we need to install capacitor banks in our
system
Where to install a capacitor bank for a particular PV
system?
What are the measures of their protection?

CAPACITOR BANK
A capacitor bank is a grouping of several identical capacitors interconnected in parallel or in series
with one another.

PURPOSE
To achieve an effective voltage management for all feeders
capacitor banks are used. There are other methods as well
that can be used for effective voltage management such as
On-load tap changer (OLTC)-fitted transformers, shunt
reactors etc. But the capacitor bank technology is the
cheapest one

Where They Are Used

They are widely used around the world, predominantly in medium voltage (MV) networks
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WHY THEY ARE USED

There are several reasons that justify their adoption i.e.

To increase voltage where the load is highly inductive;

To improve voltage regulation by adequately switching capacitors;
To reduce losses due to reduced active and reactive currents/power flows; and
To release kVA capacity of the substation and, hence, defer reinforcements.
But they are mainly used by industrial customers for power factor correction

How to control Capacitor banks

Capacitor banks can be controlled by different control mode, including current-based
control, voltage-based control, VAR control, power factor-based control, and time-based
control.

Voltage Based Control

Voltage based control is used to regulate voltage profiles. Voltage control requires no
current sensors.
Capacitor
switch off
The capacitor is switched ON
when the voltage is lower than
the pre-set switch-on value
and is switched OFF when the
voltage is higher than the preset switch-off value. These
pre-set values have certain
time delays at both ends.
Capacitor
switch on

How To Assess Maximum

PV Penetration
The maximum PV penetration a
network can host without causing any
voltage or thermal issues will be
carried out by Monte Carlo-based
three-phase power flow analyses.
The PV penetration is defined as the
percentage of houses with PV
systems from the total number of
houses in the network.

Why we need to install capacitor banks in our system

Point on
feeder 5
where
Capacitor is
connected

Without Capacitors

With Capacitors
6

Where To Install Capacitor banks (1)

Installed power of PV
plant
versus
Leading

Installed power of PV plant

versus reactive power absorbed
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Where To Install Capacitor banks (2)

Capacitor
bank
is
connected so as not to
increase the amount of
reactive power flow in
the distribution system.
Its reactive power QC is
equal to the reactive
power Q absorbed by the
PV
inverters
which
makes the net reactive
power equal to zero.
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Whats New SMART PV INVERTERS

Over 95% of the time a PV inverter is running below its rated output current
when converting DC solar power to AC active power.
The unused capacity of the inverter can then be put to use to produce reactive
power.
The output of a smart PV inverter has both reactive and active AC currents that
add geometrically to the apparent power S
For the frequency to remain stable the generated active power must match the
power demand at all times.
The reactive power capacity of a smart PV inverter can be used as a fast-acting
static VAR compensator and acting as either a shunted inductor or capacitor
decreasing or increasing the AC voltage along the line.
On the distribution side, smart PV inverters are used to correct the power factor
by providing VARs close to where they are being used, rather than importing
them from far away

Not only can both power factor correction and AC voltage

regulation be performed much more economically by