Evaluation And Improvement Of Power Quality On Distribution Network: A Case Study Of Covenant University, Ota

ABSTRACT

Power quality is a global issue due to electronic equipment becoming the backbone of the modernday economy; it affects consumers, distribution, and transmission networks. This research work focuses on evaluating and proposing improvement of the measured power quality on the distribution network in Covenant University. Electrical equipment used in Covenant University can lead to power quality problems, measurements and evaluations are to be done from time to time to monitor the distribution network. In the proposed approach, this is done in three phases. First, the measurement was carried out on five powerhouses in Covenant University using the Circutor aR6 power analyzer. Secondly, the power vision software was used to get the evaluations which include tables and graphs and thirdly the NEPLAN software was used to simulate the network evaluated. The measurement was taken during the school session while students were still at the University. The evaluation result was compared with the IEEE power quality standard that has been put in place. The measurement was carried out at 500kVA, 11KV/415V/230V on the outgoing circuit for each of the transformers. The power quality issues identified in the powerhouses were harmonics, total harmonics distortion (THD), overload, and lagging power factor. The proposed improvement gotten from simulation using NEPLAN software in this Research is active harmonic filters which reduces the harmonics; shunt capacitor for power factor correction for the lagging power factor, and load sharing for the overloaded transformer. This proposed improvements will improve equipment life, reduce heat losses, and reduce utility costs. The shunt capacitor was connected to compensate for the lagging power factor which draws current leading to the source voltage, which gave a value of 0.96 from -0.96. The active filter connected to the College of Development Studies powerhouse gave a THD value of 0.91% from 7.28%, the THD for Electrical and Information Engineering powerhouse had a value of 3.54% from 10.52%, the THD for College of Science and Technology powerhouse had a value of 0.58% from 16.03%, the THD for the Library powerhouse had a value of 0.12% from 11.92%, and the THD for the Male hostel powerhouse had a value of 0.24% from 16.71%. These imply that the active filter improved the THD across all the powerhouses as it within the specified range.