Implementation and Testing of a Practical Product to Balance Single-Phase Loads in a Three-Phase System at the Distribution and Unit Levels

Abstract

The crucial worry in the production of electricity is to be certain that the quality of the supplied electricity meets requirements. Nowadays, and with the development of technology, there are new energy sources that can add stress to the network such as renewable energy. Being supplied with high electrical quality is a must. One of the basic methods that are recommended to be introduced to the networks is to deal with load balancing at low voltage. Load reconfiguration is one of the best solutions that can be applied to reach balance. The main focus of this paper is to find the optimal consumer load rearrangement at the installation level. These changes are made to maintain the balance between the phases, to reduce the number of electricity bills, and to reduce the fuel consumption that affects the environment negatively. Certain constraints and equations are needed to optimize load distribution. Out of these constraints, an algorithm was made followed by an appropriate switching process to do the automatic balancing. This technique guarantees better results. The proposed process was tested on real data of the different types of loads with different profiles and in every single case, accepted results were obtained. To sum up, the main goal of this paper is to achieve the balancing of single-phase loads in a three-phase system. To make sure of the theoretical results, implementation was done at the University of Balamand’s laboratories using resistive loads and the physical results were always close to the theoretical outcomes.