Reducing maintenance costs in a Turkish denim factory

Challenges in the customer’s denim factory

Loads at the factory were fed by several transformers, and a 2500 kVA transformer feeding the yarn manufacturing machinery was facing high maintenance costs. The problems experienced by the customer included frequent burning of the electronic cards and excessive heating of the electrical equipment such as cables and transformers.

A power quality audit at the factory was conducted by Merus Power’s local partner, ST Tekno. Power factor at the factory was reasonably ok and was above 0.94. Though voltage harmonic distortions were also within the limits, measurements revealed that the current harmonic distortions were excessively high and were exceeding 31% which is well above the safe limits set by IEEE 519 standards.

Our Merus^® Solution

The active harmonic filtering solution was sized as per the customer’s requirements, which were to bring high current harmonic distortions under the IEEE 519 limits. Installation and commissioning of Merus^® A2-series Active Harmonic Filtering solution at the site were carried out by our local partner, ST Tekno.

As power quality data showed that there were several individual harmonics that were exceeding the limits, the Merus^® Active Harmonic Filtering solution was configured to selectable compensation mode.

Results after installation

After the successful commissioning, the Merus^® Active Harmonic Filtering solution brought current harmonic distortions well below the limits defined in IEEE 519. The reduction of harmonic distortions provided a safe environment for the reliable operation of the sensitive control circuitry of electronic cards.

Unexpected breakdowns of the electronic cards reduced significantly which helped the plant optimize its maintenance costs. As harmonic currents from the network were mitigated, the I2R in the cables and transformers also went down. This helped to mitigate the excessive heating of equipment and extended their operational lifetime.