Availon's line reactor after the redesign. This equipment mounts down tower.
When a wind turbine operates at full capacity, deficiencies of the standard line reactor often lead to its failure from overheating. It causes resin to seep out between windings followed by a large short circuit in the power-converter cabinet. As a result, the line reactor no longer minimizes high frequency harmonics on the grid, improves power quality, stabilizes output and input current, and provides inductance to fully charge the DC link to its operating voltage.
Availon North America’s Electrical Products Support Engineer Weston Smith and Mechanical Product Support Engineer Andrew Engle led a team of specialists in studying the underlying causes of line reactor failures and determined ways to minimize or eliminate them.
The resulting innovations have become a foundation for the line reactor upgrade for GE 1.5 wind turbines. Availon’s proprietary design features a significantly higher rating of 450A versus the standard 375A, assuring increased reliability during full power generation. To prevent short circuits from overheating, the line reactor has wider splits between the windings and special brackets with slots positioned to optimize air flow. In addition to the changes, the O&M firm also offers an upgraded cooling-fan kit for the converter cabinet for more efficient air movement.
The Availon line reactor before its redesign. The smaller unit was prone to overheating.
Availon North America
http://www.availon.com/
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