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Content archived on 2024-05-07

MINIMIZATION OF TRANSMISSION LOSSES IN REGIONAL POWER SYSTEMS

Objective

The objective of the project is to demonstrate in practice, in two areas of the electric power network of REE in Spain and ENEL in Italy, the possibility to reduce transmission losses by installing a multilevel voltage control system that allows to achieve continuous reactive power and voltage optimisation.
Power losses in the high voltage transmission system (400 and 220 kV) of any industrialised country account for 2 to 4 percent of the electric power consumption. This is equivalent to a generating capacity of about 500 to 1000 MW for Spain and 800 to 1600 MW for Italy.
These losses can be reduced with existing technology by installing voltage control systems to continuously maintain the real system operating point as close as possible to the theoretically obtained minimum losses operating point. The transmission losses are expected to be reduced at least 4%, equivalent to a capacity of about 20 to 40 MW for Spain and 32 to 64 MW for Italy. In energy terms, the expected savings are at least as high as 8000 to 16000 MWh per year in Spain and 12000 to 24000 MWh in Italy.
The proposed system is a hierarchical voltage control system with four control levels. This complete 4-level control system is proposed as the best possible and practical way to implement a real-time losses System minimisation Control System for high voltage transmission systems. It is a complex control system that has an important impact in power system control, security and stability. All these aspects have been already studied and the available solution (deeply studied in the ESPRIT III project EP6165 IMPROVE) guarantees excellent performance by the use of advanced control systems and optimisation control laws.
In this project the manufacturing, installation and demonstration tests of the different control equipments will show all the advantages of the system proposed, specially the energy savings that will be obtained.

Field test will be performed in the Italian and Spanish power systems with the objective to verify the expected results and apply to the whole network the hierarchical voltage control system by the year 2000 in Italy and similarly in Spain. Complete multilevel solutions will be tested in both countries with emphasis in different Subsystems. The two main features of the whole multilevel voltage control system : economy of the operation and system security improvement will be demonstrated. The stability characteristics of the multilevel control system will also be tested to show that the proposed control system will give an adequate response in all system operating conditions, normal or abnormal, steady state or transients. It is clear that any new control system such as the proposed must be thoroughly tested, as it is proposed here, if it has to gain the acceptance firstly of the utilities involved in the project, then of the whole power system community. In this sense, an essential advantage of the project is the participation of two nation wide utilities, ENEL and REE. Field tests will be performed in both nations' transmissions systems, with different operation practices, different control centres' structures, different communication systems, different losses minimisation system...etc. Testing in these two power systems will demonstrate the validity of the solutions proposed for virtually any power system and will facilitate the future commercial applications of the results. In addition, working with power plants belonging to two utilities will allow to share the costly risks involved as a result of potential maloperations, that might result in power plant trips. the commitment of two important utilities such as ENEL and REE is very important, for each of them with respect to the other and for the project itself.
A complete hierarchical multilevel voltage control system, such as the proposed here, has never been implemented in any large scale high voltage transmission system. This project will do it for the first time, in Europe and in the world.

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DEM - Demonstration contracts

Coordinator

RED ELECTRICA DE ESPANA S.A.
EU contribution
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Address
PASEO DEL CONDE DE LOS GAITANES 177
28109 MADRID
Spain

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Total cost

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