Elevating roller coaster efficiency through power quality improvements

Segment background

Amusement parks bring joy and excitement to millions of visitors worldwide, offering thrilling rides like roller coasters, that create unforgettable experiences. However, the electrifying thrills of roller coasters come with a less visible, yet significant, impact on the power quality of the park’s electrical grid.

One of the primary power quality problems associated with roller coasters is low power factor. When the power factor is low, it indicates that the load is drawing more reactive power from the grid relative to the active power required for useful work. Roller coasters, being inductive loads, consume a considerable amount of reactive power during a ride, due to the motors that are used to drive and control the movement of the train.

Launch roller coasters at amusement parks rely heavily on large amounts of linear induction motors. Combined with state-of-the-art drive technologies, they are used to launch the train to high speeds. Fast accelerations and decelerations of launch coasters lead to high reactive power spikes and voltage fluctuations.

Challenges at the customer’s amusement park

Our customer in Sweden operates an amusement park with over a dozen thrilling rides. The park’s latest attraction is a launch roller coaster with a top speed of 75 km/h, subjecting riders to exhilarating forces of up to 2.8 G. During the ride, the train of the roller coaster will accelerate twice from 0 km/h to full speed in just 3 seconds. Accelerating the train so fast with a full load consumes a lot of power in a short time, which means that the electrical system of the roller coaster must meet very strict requirements in terms of power quality, to ensure that other rides in the park are not affected by it.

Merus Power was contacted by the manufacturer of the roller coaster after they had experienced voltage fluctuations and reactive power spikes while conducting tests for the new ride. It was crucial to find a reliable solution that can be delivered and commissioned with a fast schedule, so the park can prepare for the opening of its new ride on time for the summer.

Our Merus^® Solution

In close collaboration with the roller coaster manufacturer, engineers of Merus Power determined that Merus^® A2-Active Harmonic Filter is the right solution to keep the electrical system stable during the roller coaster operation. Merus Power delivered a Merus^® A2-1800A to the site, comprising nine modules, each providing 200A of the compensation capacity to the system. All of the filters communicate with each other and are equipped with their own controllers, ensuring the reliability and redundancy of the whole active harmonic filtering system.