Analytical methodology of smart grid-based capacitive compensation using cRIO cooperating with LabVIEW

Abstract

Reactive power is an essential part of the power compared with active power. It is used to establish and sustain the magnetic field present in electrical equipment possessive of coils, such as transformers and electric machines. The reactive power consumption in large distribution networks can result in a huge reactive power flow, rising line current and a sub-nominal voltage. To avoid these negative impacts, an important technique called capacitive compensation is employed in most modern power systems and networks. However, the full spectrum of consequences resulting from using this technique is unclear since under some specific scenarios, it may switch to deliver a power factor that is far from unity. At the Bridgeford Street, Manchester, a monitoring system based on the cRIO platform has been installed in order to solve this problem. The research in this paper is to critically assess the performance of the capacitive compensation in the Bridgeford Street substation by processing the data which is sent by the cRIO monitoring system and to develop a control algorithm implemented into the cRIO using LabVIEW, a graphic programming language.