Power quality improvement of small hydropower plant located in the industrial area

Abstract

Climate problems, the increasingly robust European emissions policy and falling prices of solar and wind have led to the shutdown of many thermal power plants and increased installation of renewable energy power plants. The installed capacity of wind and solar power plants in our country is not yet significant, but small hydropower plants are often considered as a good solution for the power supply to remote areas despite the problems that sometimes arise after the installation of these power plants. This paper describes a power quality problem of high voltages occurs after the installation of a small hydropower plant of 800 kVA in an area with predominantly industrial consumers. Many industries use high technology for manufacturing and require high power quality and reliability of power supply. Even modest power quality problems can have significant technical and economic effects on these consumers. Therefore, it was necessary to precisely monitor power quality to adequately address all related problem recorded during the plant performance test phase. Also, the observed problem has led to power plant outage on several occasions in a short period of time which resulted in a reduction in power generation. Techniques for mitigation the observed power quality issue are also considered in this paper. The implemented solution of the problem is verified by power quality monitoring and SCADA system measurements.