A reactive power control relay design with a new approach

Abstract

In this study.. the design and implementation of a mixed-signal microcontroller based reactive power control relay that is superior to existing reactive power control relays is presented. This device measures the fundamental reactive power of the system and determines the switching pattern of the capacitor banks which brings the measured fundamental reactive power to the desired value. During measurement, it yields minimal computational load for the fundamental reactive power measurement by employing the Goertzel algorithm instead of the fast Fourier transform (FFT). Consequently, measurement accuracy can be increased without increasing the time required for the FFT-based power measurement by a running average using the last five measured values of the fundamental reactive power. Possible mechanical and electrical failures in capacitor banks are detected by using a simple feedback loop and the user is warned. It has all the other classical features such as P, Q I V, and power factor measurement, harmonic analysis, and failure warning signals that a relay should possess.