WORKSHOP

The IEEE PES - IAS Delhi Chapter organized a workshop on Power Quality at IIT Delhi on 25th November 2015. Two Faculty Dr. Deepika Yadav and Ms. Charu Jain along with students Swati Sharma and Pranjal Dunga from EEE department of Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurgaon attended the workshop.

The topics discussed at the workshop were:

The expert faculties who graced the workshop were Dr. Peter Sutherland, DL PES GE Energy Industrial Solutions, USA, Prof. Bhim Singh, IIT Delhi, Dr. Sukumar Mishra, IIT Delhi, Dr. B.K. Panigrahi, IIT Delhi.

Dr. Peter Sutherland, delivered lectures on fundamental power electronics devices, harmonics in industrial power system, PWM drives and 18-pulse rectifiers. He explained that Power Quality, or more accurately Voltage Quality, is essential for electrical equipment to operate correctly. Power Quality is the degree to which the supply voltage waveform conforms to the ideal sinusoidal waveform (including magnitude and timing). Any deviation from this is a Power Quality issue. Power Quality is a subset of ElectroMagnetic Compatibility.

Dr. Bhim Singh explained the three-phase AC-DC converters. He said that AC-DC converters have been developed with improved power quality in terms of power-factor correction, reduced total harmonic distortion at input AC mains, and regulated DC output in buck, boost, buck-boost, multilevel, and multipulse modes. He then discussed on the geometry of synchronous generation results in a sinusoidal EMF being generated. He said that this allows transformation to higher voltages for efficient transmission of power. All equipment connected to the electrical network is designed to operate with a sinusoidal voltage at rated value.

Although power systems can be sources of radiated emissions, radiated emissions from outside sources rarely affect the voltage waveform. Therefore in Power Quality only conducted interference is of concern.

Dr. Sukumar Mishra explained the Unified power quality conditioners (UPQCs) allow the mitigation of voltage and current disturbances that could affect sensitive electrical loads while compensating the load reactive power. Diverse control techniques have been proposed to evaluate the instantaneous output voltage of the series active power filter of the UPQC but, in most cases, these controllers only can compensate a kind of voltage disturbance. He further explained the concept of Electro Magnetic Compatibility refers to the ability of electrical and electronic equipment or systems to function satisfactorily in the environment, without introducing intolerable disturbance to that environment. Thus it implies that a limitation of emissions from equipment or systems is required, as well as a certain level of immunity to interference which must be expected from other equipment and systems in that environment. Emissions can be in the radiated or conducted form.

Dr. B.K. Panigrahi explained that Power Quality events can be classified into those that are discrete events (such as voltage dips/sags) and those that are continuous (e.g. harmonics, steady-state voltage, flicker etc). Power electronics is the application of solid-state electronics to the control and conversion of electric power. It also refers to a subject of research in electronic and electrical engineering which deals with the design, control, computation and integration of nonlinear, time-varying energy-processing electronic systems with fast dynamics. The rectification process by which AC is converted to DC is a common source of harmonics.

The workshop provided the participants an exposure.