ABSTRACT
High capacity consumers are key customers for electric service providers, accounting for dependable base loads and revenue streams. Examples include steel mills employing electric arc furnaces (EAFs), metals processing plants using induction furnaces, facilities employing large motors with fluctuating loads, facilities employing large HP rated Variable Frequency Drives (VFD), and more recently, data centers with large numbers of computers. It is in the best interest of service providers to ensure that the quality of the supply voltage to any customer is not affected by the loads in these high capacity facilities. However, many of these facilities have a potential of being a source of power quality (PQ) issues as they can be sources of significant harmonic current injections and/or excessive fluctuations in supply voltage. The adverse impacts on the system can be quite pronounced if the supply system is weak given the large size of the facility. An example would be a large industrial plant located at the end of a weak distribution feeder (Dugan et al. 2012). Therefore, system planners should also include contingency scenarios (e.g., line outages) in the system impact studies when evaluating addition of high capacity consumers with a potential of introducing or aggravating PQ issues.
