Harmonic mitigations and cost savings in a quality milk dairy

Achieving energy efficiency in the food industry is very important as megatrends intensify competition and put pressure on finding increasingly sustainable ways to produce food and energy, and to cover the food needs of the projected population. Improvements in the energy efficiency of food production systems are one of the main methods of reducing the environmental footprint without reducing food production itself. Our milk dairy customer company experienced severe harmonic distortions in their production lines, but after the installation of Merus^® Solutions, great improvements were made to power quality.

Challenges in the customer’s milk dairy

Our customer’s quality milk dairy in the USA had problems with high harmonic currents, which were mostly caused by the Variable Frequency Drives (VFD) located in the dairy production area which is operating 24/7. In order to eliminate penalties applied due to the distortion in currents the dairy needed power-quality equipment. A third party performed power quality measurements to help the dairy meet power quality standards. Based on the measurements, Merus™ A2-Active Harmonic Filter was chosen to be delivered to achieve the standard requirements.

Our Merus^® Solution

A UL 508 certificated Merus^® A2-series Active Harmonic Filter was chosen to solve the harmonic distortion. Merus^® A2-Series devices have extremely fast response time, a small footprint, and very low audible noise level, thanks to modern 3-level topology.

The sizing of the compensation system was based on power quality measurement data to meet IEEE 519-2014 standard limits. Based on the information, a Merus^® A2-150A cubicle was delivered to the dairy and commissioned. Production operates 24/7 and the loading of production is never zero. The commissioning did not cause any downtime and it was done while the plant was operating normally.

Results after installation

With Merus^® Active Harmonic Filters, the 5th, 7th, and 11th harmonics were mitigated by splitting the compensation capacity to all three harmonics to achieve the lowest total harmonic distortion (THD) compensation capacity. The THD(i) decreased by 14.6% and the dairy meets IEEE 519-2014 standard limits. Improving the quality of electricity brings direct and indirect savings to the dairy. The most significant direct savings are that they do not have to pay penalties for poor power quality.