Phase stabilizers as a means of improving the quality of electricity

This article deals with relatively new electrical devices that can effectively corrects the quality of electrical energy in enterprises.

Many have heard, and experts are constantly faced with very poor quality of electricity in the electrical networks of the CIS countries. It is not the power generating plants that are to blame for this, but the end users.

Now, powerful electrical installations with non-linear or asymmetric power consumption from networks are widely used in industry. An example is arc steel furnaces… But besides them, many installations consume energy in separate portions, which leads to distortion of the sinusoidal current in networks. In this case, additional energy losses commensurate with the consumption of the payload occur.

Distortion of the current form in networks reduces the efficiency of electrical equipment, leads to the appearance of significant currents in the neutral bus and, ultimately, again to power losses.To eliminate the negative impact of powerful nonlinear loads on the network, special devices have been developed - phase stabilizers... Do not confuse them with voltage stabilizers. Voltage stabilizers have been known for a long time and perform completely different functions.

So what can a phase stabilizer do? First of all, equalize the voltage between the lines. In three-phase power circuits, an unbalanced load results in different voltages in each phase. This phenomenon is known in electrical engineering as «phase imbalance». In this case, even a very slight unbalance of the phase voltages can lead to a significant reduction in the efficiency of the equipment.

It is known from practice that a relatively small voltage imbalance of 3% can cause an induction motor current to increase by 25% and its temperature to increase by 15%. The developed phase stabilizers enable effective equalization of phase voltages, weakening the effect of unbalanced loads by more than 10 times.

In industrial electrical networks, short overvoltage pulses associated with lightning or switching (on or off) of powerful loads often occur. These pulses can disable electronic devices for industrial automation, household appliances. Connecting a phase stabilizer protects networks from such short high voltage pulses. In addition, phase stabilizers perform the function of a very high-quality filter with higher current harmonics, which occur with sudden changes in current strength.

A very useful function of phase stabilizers is to generate a voltage phase when it disappears.There can be several reasons: the fuse in the protective circuits of one of the phases has blown, the voltage has disappeared for a short time or has dropped sharply. In such cases, motors can quickly overheat and become damaged. Connecting a stabilizer provides automatic restoration of the voltage of the damaged phase.

Another, unusual property of stabilizers is the ability to provide reliable protection of information from unauthorized access or reading. The fact is that during the operation of many devices, especially computers, information can be read through the power networks of the devices. The phase stabilizer acts as a rejection filter over a wide frequency range.

The relatively low cost of phase stabilizers in combination with their flexibility make it possible to restore their use in a short time. The described device will provide you with protection against negative phenomena in the electrical network. This increases the service life transformers, electric motors, industrial and household appliances, office equipment, as well as significantly increasing the reliability of their work.