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Overcoming harmonic challenges for wind turbine blade balancing in TX, USA

Local Partner: Enhanced Electrical Sales
Location:Texas, USA
Industry: Wind Turbines
Timeline: 2019

Background

In 2019, Enhanced Electrical Sales, a partner of Comsys, collaborated with an OEM of balancing equipment to help an electrical contractor based in Houston, Texas, to balance wind turbine blades. This proved to be a challenging task due to a significant issue with harmonics caused by a large MV VFD (medium voltage variable frequency drive).

Challenge

The main challenge was to meet the IEEE-519 requirement for the application to mitigate the harmonics caused by the medium voltage drive. Failure to balance the blades could result in damage to the wind turbine structure, driven equipment, and bearings.

Solution

Enhanced Electrical Sales delivered an ADF P300 and a step-up transformer to mitigate the harmonics from the medium voltage drive. The step-up transformer allowed the low-voltage filter to operate at a medium voltage and incorporated a wye-wye winding to prevent a phase shift from the harmonic filter. ADF P300 was used in combination with the step-up transformer to address the challenge. The customer chose ADF over competing solutions because it was physically smaller and provided better health monitoring and metering than the standard 18-pulse transformer with multiple rectifiers. Comsys provided start-up and commissioning services.

Result

The ADF P300 provided the customer with a reliable and measured solution for their needs and helped them balance the wind turbine blades safely and effectively.