Reactive compensation techniques for increasing loadability of long primary distribution lines

Abstract

Electric networks often consist of remote cities or villages with low population densities, which consume a considerably small amount of energy. This can be in the order of a few megawatts for places that are up to 100 km away from the source. Typical uncompensated primary distribution lines are not an effective option for these situations, since line loadability drastically decreases as the line length is increased. Increasing the voltage level, on the other hand, is not cost effective. This paper investigates different reactive compensation techniques for increasing the loadability of these lines. Effect of series capacitors, shunt capacitors and voltage regulating transformers in such systems, as separate or combined configurations, have been analyzed and compared.