A Report on 8th Thomas Alva Edison Memorial Lecture

PES Distinguished Lecturer (DL) Dr. Kalyan K. Sen, Electromechanical Division of Curtiss-Wright (erstwhile Westinghouse), Pittsburg, PA, USA accompanied by his daughter Emory in his tour to Chapters / Sections in India landed in Delhi in the night of October 08, 2004. Next day they had a tour of the city of Delhi with IEEE JMI PES Student Chapter Chair Mr. Divesh Dhawan accompanying.

For the year 2004, Delhi's 8th Thomas Alva Edison Memorial Seminar was delivered by Dr. Sen on the topic 'Recent Developments in FACTS Technology' with venue as the Headquarters of Central Electricity Authority at R.K. Puram, New Delhi on October 11, 2004 (Monday). It started at about 10-30 A.M. and continued for four hours with a short break in between.

With transmission lines becoming loaded to their capacity and new lines being hard to site and build, the ever-growing need for transporting more electricity can be met either by installing new transmission lines or by using the existing ones in a more efficient way. The latter approach is to maximize the active power flow that generates revenue while minimizing the reactive power flow that contributes nothing to the useful energy delivered. The power industry’s quest for the most economic way to transfer bulk power along a desired path can only be achieved through the independent control of active and reactive power flow in a transmission line.  Traditional solutions, such as shunt inductor/capacitor, phase-shifting transformer, and series inductor/capacitor affect both the active and the reactive power flow in the transmission line simultaneously.  With the use of Voltage-Sourced Converter (VSC)-based Unified Power Flow Controller (UPFC), the active and the reactive power flow in the line can be regulated independently.  Since the field demonstration of the world’s first UPFC in 1998, another FACTS controller, namely Sen Transformer (ST), has been proposed.  In contrast to the UPFC, which uses a large number of solid-state switching devices, the ST uses time-tested components, such as transformer and load tap changers, but provides the same independent active and reactive power flow control as the UPFC at a much lower cost.

This seminar covered various types of Flexible Alternating Current Transmission Systems (FACTS) controllers and their usefulness in power system applications.  Various modeling techniques of FACTS controllers were briefly discussed.  The results from the simulation were compared with those from the field measurements.

This presentation was of interest to all power-engineering professionals, who came from academic institutions as well as power utilities and equipment manufacturers. In all 43 persons attended the event.

Dr. Kalyan K. Sen and his daughter left Delhi in the afternoon of the day to continue their tour to Baroda, Ahmedabad (under Gujarat Section), Bangalore and Calcutta.