Improvement of Electrical Power Quality in a Chemical Factory

The final project pertaining to Power Quality of a captive power plant was recommended by the Operations Department. They helped to select a project, which was related to a problem they were facing from some time. The problem was related to the Electrical power quality of the power generation and distribution system. Power quality has direct influence on the efficient running of Electrical machines and it controls the production costs.

In this regard, other departments also helped in gathering the data and giving some of their precious time to get to the root cause of the problem. The real task was the identification of root cause. Once the cause is known, a number of solutions can be devised to solve it.

1. Electrical Department

2. Mechanical Department

3. Projects Department

Following other organizations also provided useful information about the electrical characteristic curves of generators.

1. Caterpillar Generators

2. Representatives of Aceo AVR USA (Masood Traders, Karachi)

3. Representatives of GMT Generators Italy (Prime Solutions, Lahore)

The list would not be complete without acknowledging the help extended by Mr. Sajid Solangi, Assistant Manager MEPCO for providing valuable data regarding Electrical power system and sharing his views regarding its interpretation.

Abstract

This problem discussed in this project is related to the Electrical power produced by a captive power plant installed inside a chemical factory. The captive power plant supplied Electrical power to the chemical factory. The chemicals factory was engaged in manufacturing of different types of fertilizers. The set up of captive power plant included one main generator rated 18 Mega Watts. Sometimes the load demand exceeds the output of this generator and power has to be supplied additionally by two smaller generators, rated 2 MW each, which can be synchronized one by one with the main generator. The problem faced by the organization was of power...