Columbia III Solar – Shunt Power Reactor & Capacitor Bank Commissioning

Share this article:   

Monday Dec. 23, 2013

NEPSI recently completed commissioning of a metal-enclosed shunt power capacitor bank and reactor bank at the 10 MW Columbia III solar photovoltaic (PV) plant located in Mojave, California. The equipment was received onsite late November and successfully commissioned last week.

The 8-stage bank, designed and built by NEPSI, will supply 4.2 leading MVAR (capacitive) and 2.6 lagging MVAR (inductive) to Recurrent Energy to meet Southern California Edison's (SCE) interconnection requirements. The shunt power reactor bank extends NEPSI's capability to automatically control voltage or system power factor by having the ability to produce or consume vars. This is especially advantageous to independent power producers that have to meet stringent interconnect requirements.

The 4 stage reactor bank utilized switched iron-core reactors to absorb vars. The use of iron-core reactors, over a more traditionally used air-core reactor provided for significant space and cost savings, short lead-time, and the ability to ship the equipment as a single, fully integrated system.