Applying FACTS to Mitigate Power Quality

Problems in Steel Making Industry_ A Techno-

Economic Study
Ahmed M. Hassan
Al-Ezz Dekheila Steel
Co.(EZDK)
Alexandria 21537Egypt
ahmedh@ezzsteel.com.eg
Amr Abou-Ghazala
Electrical Power Department,
Alexandria University,
Alexandria 21544, Egypt
a.ghazala@electropower.com
Ashraf Megahed
Electrical Power Department,
Alexandria University,
Alexandria 21544, Egypt
megahed@ieee.org

Abstract— Electric Arc furnace (EAF) represents one of the most
intensive and disturbing loads in the electric power systems. Utilities
are concerned about the power quality issues such load can cause
and try to take precautions to minimize their effects on power
network at Point of Common Coupling (PCC). In this paper,
mitigation of these resulting power quality issues can be shown to be
also beneficial to industrial plant from a techno-economic point of
view. One of the most important FACTS solutions for mitigation is
the Static Var Compensator (SVC). This study presents the results
of applying this solution in Main Receiving Substation (MRSS) of
EZDK and the techno-economic benefits from such application
reference to international standard performance figure.
Keywords-component— Electric Arc Furnace, Static Var
Compensator, Harmonic Analysis, Power Quality, Flicker
Mitigation, Techno-economic analysis
I. INTRODUCTION
Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) is a widely used device in
metallurgical and processing industries. It is a nonlinear time
varying load, which can cause many problems to the power system
quality such as unbalance, harmonic inter harmonic and voltage
flicker [1]. Thus study of electric arc furnaces has potential
benefits for both customers and utilities. An accurate modeling of
an EAF will help in dealing with the problems caused by its
operation. Minimization of the undesirable impact of EAFs can
improve electric efficiency and reduce power fluctuations in the
system.
The description of an arc furnace load depends on the
following parameters: arc voltage, arc current and arc length
(which is determined by the position of the electrodes). Based on
the study of above essential parameters, many models are set up
for the purpose of harmonic and flicker analysis [2]. In general,
they may be classified as follows, a) Time domain analysis method
(Characteristic Method, Time Domain Equivalent Nonlinear
Circuit Method), and b) Frequency Domain analysis method
(Harmonic Voltage Source Model, Harmonic domain Solution of
nonlinear differential equation). Each method has its own
advantages and disadvantages. Comparison and commendation of
different arc furnace models were presented in [3]. Most of the
existing models make some kinds of approximation on the
characteristic of arc. There have been two general approaches to
the problem of arc furnace modeling: stochastic and chaotic. In
most of the previous studies, stochastic ideas are used to capture
the periodic, nonlinear, and time-varying behavior of arc furnaces
[4-6]. In [4], the arc furnace load is modeled as a voltage source.
The model is based on representation of the V-I characteristics
using sinusoidal variations of arc resistance and band limited white
noise.
Research study shows that, the electrical fluctuations in the arc
furnace voltage have proven to be chaotic in nature. Some chaos-
based models reported in specialized literature [7-8] have been
applied to simulate ac [9-10] and dc arc furnaces [11].
This paper intends to present an integrated simulation
modeling of EAF and SVC networks instead of using single valued
piece-wise linear V-I characteristics of the arc furnace load, a
dynamic and multi-valued V-I characteristics are obtained by
using corresponding differential equations [10]. The output of
dynamic model developed is modulated with low frequency chaos
signal to produce the arc furnace model. The model developed is
connected to actual power system model to study the voltage
fluctuation.
The paper is organized as follows; Section II introduces the
modeling of EAF. Section III discusses the SVC theory of
operation and background history. Section IV describes the Case
Study for Integrated Model of EAF and SVC. Finally, the
conclusion is presented in section V.
II. MODELING OF EAF
A. Arc Furnace Operation
Electric arc furnaces are available in both alternating current
(AC) and Direct current (DC) models. A transformer directly
energizes furnace electrodes in a high current circuit in arc
furnaces, whereas dc furnaces employ a controlled rectifier to
supply dc to the furnace electrodes. Arc furnace operation may be
classified into stages, depending on the status of the melt and the
time lapse from the initial energization of the unit.
Consider the case of the processing of scrap steel in an ac EAF.
During the melting period, pieces of steel create momentary short
circuits on the secondary side of the furnace transformer. These
load changes affect the arc characteristics, causing fluctuations of
current. The current fluctuations cause variations in reactive power,
which cause a momentary voltage drop or flicker, both at the
supply bus and at nearby buses in the interconnected system. The
arc currents are more uniform during the refining period and result (i) At least one locally active reactor
in less impact on the power quality of the system. Arc furnaces (ii) At least one nonlinear element.
also create harmonic load currents and asynchronous spectral
components. Harmonics represent an important power quality (iii) At least three energy storage elements
issue, because they may cause undesirable operating conditions Chua’s circuit satisfies the above requirements.
such as excess losses in transformers, mal-operation of drive
controllers etc. [1]. Fig.1 shows typical installation of EAF. C. Matlab Simulink Model Of EAF
The development of general dynamic arc model in the form of
a differential equation is based on the principle of conservation of
energy. The approach is fundamentally different from those
methods where some empirical relation is used to represent the
electrical arc. In the dynamic model such relations which are
implicit for steady state conditions are not pre defined and give
result for different conditions depending on both frequency and
current magnitude. Here the arc furnace is modeled in two stages.
First dynamic electric arc modeling is done and the obtained arc
voltage is then modulated with chaotic signal to produce final arc
Fig. 1. Typical installation of EAF furnace model.
Fig.2 shows actual and piece-wise linear approximation of V- The power balance equation for the arc is
I characteristic of an Arc Furnace Load where Vig is the ignition
P1 + P2 = P3 (1)
voltage and Vex is the extinguish voltage.
Where
P1 represents the power transmitted in the form of heat to the
external environment.
P2 represents the power, which increases the internal energy in
the arc, and which therefore affects its radius.
P3 represents the total power developed in the arc and
converted into heat. The above equation can be represented in the
form of differential equation [13] of the arc:
dr K3
K1 r n + K 2 r = i2 (2)
dt rm+2
Fig. 2. Actual and piece-wise linear approximation of V-I characteristic of an Arc
Furnace Load Where
B. Chaotic Dynamics In Electric Arc Furnaces r is the arc radius and is chosen as the state variable instead of
Chaos, also known as the strange attractor, does not generally taking arc resistance or conductance.
have an accepted precise mathematical definition. Usually from a k1, k2 and k3 are constants relative to EAF melting conditions.
practical view point, it can be defined as the bounded steady-state
behavior that does not fall into the categories of the other three m is the variations of the resistivity with temperature.
steady-state behaviors i.e. the equilibrium points, periodic n is the conditions of cooling.
solutions, and quasi periodic solutions [8]. The equilibrium points
are zero dimensional and periodic solutions are one dimensional, The arc voltage is given by:
where as strange attractors are more complex and their dimension i
is a fraction. A chaotic system is a deterministic system that v= (3)
g
exhibits random movement and it is a nonlinear system that
exhibits extreme sensitivity in the state trajectory with respect to Where
the initial conditions. It has been observed that the electric
fluctuations in an arc furnace are chaotic in nature [12]. g is defined as arc conductance and is given by the following
equation:
The chaotic component of the arc furnace voltage is obtained
rm+2
from the chaotic circuit of Chua [10]. To exhibit chaos, the circuit g= (4)
K3
consisting of resistors capacitors and inductors has to contain the
following:
 It is possible to represent the different stages of the arcing III. SVC BACKGROUND AND THEORY OF OPERATION
process by simply modifying the parameters of m and n. The By definition, capacitors generate and reactors (inductors)
complete set of combination of these parameters for different absorb reactive power when connected to an ac power source.
stages of electric arc can be found in [11]. They have been used with mechanical switches for (coarsely)
The state space equations of the above mentioned system controlled var generation and absorption since the early days of ac
would be in this case: power transmission. Continuously variable var generation or
K3 K1
absorption for dynamic system compensation was originally
Ro = i2 - R (5) provided by .over- or under-excited rotating synchronous
K2 R3 K2
machines and, later, by saturating reactors in conjunction with
K3 fixed capacitors.
V=i* 2 (6)
R
Implementing the above equations using Simulink blockset as Since the early 1970’s high power, line-commutated thyristors
shown in Fig.3, taking the parameters K1= 3000; K2 = 1; K3 = 1; in conjunction with capacitors and reactors have been employed in
n=2; m= 0 to simulate melting stages, the dynamic voltage/current various circuit configurations to produce variable reactive output,
characteristic of the electric arc are modeled as shown in Fig.4. [19]. These in effect provide a variable shunt impedance by
synchronously switching shunt capacitors and/or reactors "in" and
"out" of the network as shown in Fig.6

Fig. 3 MATLAB/ Simulink model of electric Arc Furnace

Fig. 6 SVC Components

The SVC is used to regulate voltage on a system. When system

voltage is low the SVC generates reactive power (SVC capacitive).
When system voltage is high it absorbs reactive power (SVC
inductive) as shown in Fig.7.

Fig. 4 Dynamic Characteristics of EAF

This model is then combined with the band limit white noise
to create the chaotic nature of the arc furnace voltage and current
parameters as shown in the control structure of EAF as shown in
Fig.5 [14-18]

Fig. 5.Control Structure of Arc Furnace Fig. 7 SVC Interaction with Power Network Dynamics
 IV. FINANCIAL BENEFITS TO STEEL MAKING
PLANTS DUE TO SVC OPERATION
A. CALCULATION OF NETWORK REACTIONS
1) Voltage Drop and Pawer Factor
As can be seen on the below trend that the voltage during
SVC#1 out of Service can reach 30.4 kV as a minimum value.
While when SVC#1 is on service the voltage minimum value
is 32.75 kV.

Fig. 4. Power and Voltage profile for one heat EAF#2 when SVC#1 is On

Based on the design values of the EAF, the following cases

are estimated for SMP#1 operation
Operation SVC In Service SVC out of Service
Tap 10 10
Name Plate Voltage Ratio 33/0.721 33/0.721
Actual Voltage Ratio 33/0.721 30.9/0.675
P.F 0.9 0.78
Active Power
63 54.6
(MW)
On-TAP Time (min.)* 48.3 55.7
Fig. 2. Power and Voltage profile for EAF#2 on 17.11.15 # Heats
91.79 82
(Turn Around +delays 14.4 min.)
* kwh/ton ∗ EAF capacity (tons) ∗ 60 (min)
On Tap time (min.) =
𝐴𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑃𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 (𝑘𝑊)∗𝐸𝐴𝐹 𝑒𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦∗𝐸𝐴𝐹 𝐸𝑞𝑢𝑖.𝐴𝑣𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦

The above table shows 4 additional heats for 4 EAF’s due to on tap time saving
with SVC in operation.

The following table shows the actual EAF’s performance with and without SVC
for the same operating conditions:

Comparison Planned Without SVC in With SVC in

Point of View Figures Operation Operation
Tapping Yield % 87.3 86.3 87.3
Availability % 96.5 96.6 96.5
DRI % 70 64.8 65.6
On Tap Time
58.56 59.7 54.7
(Min./Heat)
Fig. 3. Power and Voltage profile for EAF#2 on 21.11.15
Turn Around
Time 11.8 12.8 12.7
Also, as can be seen below for the integrated P.F along the heat (Min./Heat)
is about 0.78 and over 0.9 when SVC#1 is on Delays Time
2.6 2.6 3.5
(Min./Heat)
EAF Power
565 573.42 562.6
KWH/T
# Heats 77 77 80
Fig. 4. Actual Comparison between SVC in and out of service for same operaring
conditions

In addition to the reduction in the monthly electric bill due to power factor
improvement to a value of more than 0.98, which save around 5,000,000 L.E/year.

A. PayBack Period, Net Present Value (NPV) & Internal Rate

of Return (IRR) Study
Assuming the following figures the NPV & IRR can be calculated as following:
Fig. 4. Power and Voltage profile for one heat EAF#1 when SVC#1 is Off
 Capital investement of 45,500,000 L.E
  Benefit 1 from additional 110,160 TMS/year ~ 55,000,000/year
 Benefit 2 from P.F bonus in electric bill ~ 5,000,000/year
 Assuming life time of 20 years and Interest Rate of 10%
 NPV = 465,313,823 L.E in total 20 years lifetime of the project
 IRR= 131.8% which exceeds the accepted 10% rate by 13 times
 Pay Back period 1 year.
V. CONCLUSION
The EAF Matlab model in this paper gives more realistic
simulation to the EAF taking into consideration its chaotic nature.
The significant operational benefits can be summarized into
higher P.F reaching more than 98% which is miraculous for a steel
making plant, voltage stabilization on the steel making bus with
various EAF loading conditions which means increased
production and smoother operation and finally lower flickering,
lower harmonic levels which means cleaner bus at PCC.
The financial impact showed that power quality is not only
beneficial for utility power grid but also for the plant itself since
the operation performance showed decrease in On-Tap time by
5minutes resulting in increased daily productivity of 3 heats,
meaning 1,000 Tons molten steel/year which can be estimated to
achieve payback period for the SVC investment in less than one
year for such application.
Also, the SVC network reactions were also discussed to
validate design limits and compare between actual and simulated
network reactions to dynamic loading of EAF’s during SVC
operation.
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Ahmed Hassan he received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical
power engineering from Alexandria University,
Egypt in 2009 and 2012, respectively. He is presently
an electrical power engineer in the main receiving
substation at Al-Ezz Al-Dekheila Steel Co. He has
worked on power quality mitigation techniques,
earthing and lightning protection in oil and gas
industries and has several publications in these
research fields
Amr Abou-Ghazala he Received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical
engineering from Alexandria University, Egypt, in 1990 and 1995,
respectively, and the PhD degree from Old Dominion
University, Norfolk VA, in 1998. From 2000 until 2001,
he was assistant professor with physical Electronics
Research Institute Laboratories, Old Dominion
University, where he was engaged in pulse power
technology. Presently he is associate professor at
Alexandria University. His present research interests
include power system analysis, operation,
distribution, and power quality.
Ashraf Megahed he received the Ph.D. degree in electrical power
engineering from University of Calgary in 1998. He
has been a professor in faculty of Engineering,
Alexandria University for 19 years and has many
publications covering various research field areas’
such as smart grid, power systems optimization and
networks reliability.