Influence on a Consumer Unit Power Factor Provided by the Connection of a SHPP in Shunt with the Utility Power

Abstract

Production growth of agribusiness in the state of Mato Grosso increased the deployment of industries in several regions of the state, regions which the hydraulic potential is favorable to the installation of small hydro power plants (SHPP) that helps in the supply of the active power demand of these consumer units (UC). This article analyzes a consumer unit of Class A customer, relative to the agribusiness, with an industrial park consisting of soybean storage, processing unit of cotton and cottonseed crushing, what was initially only connected to the electric utility bus. After building a SHP with two generators at the UC, this generation was connected in parallel with the power utility bus after the system power measurement. In this work is analyzed the influence of the entrance of SHPP in surplus of UC’s reactive power, discussing the need for parallel generation to operate with the power factor in conformity with the load’s reactive demand requested by the UC of the utility bus to improve the power factor recorded by the measurement system and eliminate the excess of reactive energy on the energy bill, similarly with the effect of a connection of a variable capacitor bank downstream the utility measuring for regulating the power factor seen by the meter.