Active Filter Install in Central London

A number of under-voltage trips on the roof plant chillers, including some failures involving physical damage to the chiller plant have occurred at a large commercial site in central London.

 

A previous analysis carried out on the roof plant on Chillers 1 – 5 identified very high levels of voltage harmonic distortion on certain chillers and moderate levels of voltage harmonic distortion on others.

 

From the PQA results, it was clear that the majority of the voltage harmonic distortion is being imported from the UKPN MV network. In the past, the reduction of harmonic voltage distortion imported from the MV network has not been possible but active harmonic filter algorithm technology has advanced to the point where this is now possible, albeit with the trade-off of drawing more harmonic current through the transformer.

 

With this in mind, a quotation was provided to replace panel-built Power Factor Correction with 2 sets of 300amp, 480volt P300-300/480 type Active Harmonic Filtration. 1 set for each affected supply.

 

Prior to the installation, our engineers visited the site and removed all the old equipment and measured up the existing cubicle so that new mounting plates could be produced. These plates would then be fitted with the Comsys filters back in our workshop and fully tested prior to installation on-site.

 

During the install, the new mounting plates were fitted along with all the pre-built filter equipment. Additional forced air ventilation was installed to the cubicle and a multicore C.T cable was run to the LV incomers.

All the works were completed over 3 days by 3 of our engineers including a full commissioning of the new Active Filters.