Variable Frequency Drive- An Introduction

Energy conservation , needless to say, is the need of the hour. In earlier times electrical (or
mechanical drives) used to run at full speeds and the reduction in speed - if the need was there
used to be achieved by offering system resistance, say by throttling. Such a practice of varying
system resistance in order to control the speed results in making the prime mover doing more work
than is actually required by the process and thus the efficiency of the system decreases , more so
at lower speeds.
In a large power plant the power consumption by auxiliaries is of the order of 6%-8%. There
are various speed control methods offering system resistance and hence causing energy losses in
steam/water and air/flue gas flow paths and thus resulting in considerable power consumption. ID
fans are one of the biggest power consumers in the air/flue gas path.
It has been a common practice , conventionally , to use constant speed induction motors for
ID fans along with inlet guide vanes/ outlet damper / hydraulic coupling for controlling the gas flow.
In these processes as mentioned above, there is a considerable power loss as the useful energy is
being wasted to control the final output.
The LCI ( load Commutated Inverter) type VFD system delivers just enough power to the motor to
make it run at a particular torque and speed as required by the process. In other words there is no
wastage of power due to system resistance. The system uses synchronous motor instead of
induction motor because of its capability to run at leading power factor to provide natural
commutation to the inverter system.
The efficiency of hydraulic coupling is very poor at low speeds ( at 50% speeds the efficiency is less
than 50%). Because of the design margins the ID fans are normally supposed to operate at 60% to
70% of the rated load(i.e. even at full plant load the speed needs to be checked), thus making the
available mechanical means of flow control highly inefficient. The typical efficiency curves of VFD ,
hydraulic coupling , inlet guide vanes , outlet damper are shown in figure*

% Efficiency

Load Commutated
Inverter Drive

100

Inlet Guide
Vane

60

Hydraulic
Coupling

80

Outlet damper or Throttling

40

20
20

40

60

80

100

% Speed Flow
Fig.1: Efficiency curves of various flow control devices

BASIC LCI TYPE VFD SYSTEM:

The Load Commutated Inverter (LCI) is a static, adjustable frequency drive system that
controls the speed of a synchronous machine. The basic system consists of line commutated
thyristor converter that feeds a load commutated thyristor converter through a dc link reactor. Fig.2
is a simplified one-line diagram of a single channel LCI.

Isolation
Transformer

Rectifier
(Source)

DC Link
(Reactor)

Inverter
(Load)

Synchronous motor

Excitation Power

Fig.2: LCI system block diagram

The isolation transformer provides the correct voltage at the terminals of the rectifier and
isolation from the AC system bus. The rectifier is a thyristor bridge whose gating is controlled to
produce a variable DC voltage at its output. The output of the rectifier is fed to the dc link reactor
which smoothes out the DC power and feeds it into the inverter bridge, which provides the variable
frequency ac at the stator terminals of the synchronous machine.
This procedure is necessary because of the following reasons.

There is a one to one correspondence between motor speed and the frequency of the stator

voltage viz.: motor speed =120*frequency/number of poles.

When the correct amount of excitation or field power is applied to the synchronous motors

rotor, it will provide leading VARs to the circuit (inverter circuit) that is connected to the stator leads.
Leading VARs are essential to commutate the inverter bridge.
The synchronous motor field is excited using a wound rotor induction machine whose rotor voltage
is rectified to supply field current to the synchronous machine. The stator voltage for the induction
motor is supplied from the static excitation voltage controller included as a part of the LCI control
panel. This controller is gated /controlled entirely by the LCI electronic control module. This
controller controls the excitation to produce the required machine flux and provides field over/under
current protection.
This controller is called the LCI or Load Commutated Inverter because as we know commutation is
the process whereby the changing voltage causes one cell to stop conducting and another to start
conducting. In the case of rectifier bridge, the power system provides this voltage or in other words
it is line commutated. It is therefore called line-commutated rectifier. The inverter bridge has
this same requirement and that is why a synchronous motor with leading power factor is used in
the drive because of its ability to deliver leading VARs that can commutate the inverter bridge. An
induction machine cannot do this. In the case of inverter bridge the load motor provides the
commutating voltage to the inverter bridge. So it is called load-commutated inverter.
The demand signal received from the control system prompts the source side converter
(rectifier) to provide the required current to the dc link reactor at the dc voltage level set by the load
side converter. Thus the source side converter plus the dc link reactor become the current source
controller for the motor and the motor torque, frequency (hence speed) and voltage level get
adjusted to the load requirements.

Therefore, the LCI provides an AC motor drive that takes power from the utility power
system and provides controlled speed operation of the motor in response to the process control
signal.
The first four variable frequency drives (VFDs) in a power plant in India were installed for
ID fan drives of 500 MW unit (Unit 6) of Tata Electric Company at Trombay. This unit was
synchronized with the grid in March 1990.Subsequently VFDs have been installed at 210MW
Units-4, 5,6 Vijayawada Thermal Power Plant of APSEB, 210MW Units-3&4 Dadri Plant of NTPC,
210 MW Unit-6 Panipat Thermal Power Plant of HPGCL. Apart from ID fans the VFD is being
considered to be used for controlling BFPs too.

Techno-economic study conducted at Vijayawada TPS Units3 & 4 for VFD:

Both the units are of 210 MW , have tower type boilers supplied by the same source and are
identical mechanically and layout wise. Both the units have two nos. of ID fans each and each fan
is rated for 60% of flow.
ID Fans of both the units are of BHEL make and of identical design. Unit-3 ID fans are
driven by BHEL made fixed speed squirrel cage induction motors and each fan is coupled to the
motor using hydraulic coupling ( Voith , Germany) where the speed output is varied using scoop
control. Unit 4 ID fans are driven by BHEL made synchronous motor with brushless exciter and
controlled using Load Commutated Inverter (LCI) type VFD.
Suitable points were selected for measurement of the power inputs to the two systems.
Units 3 & 4 were run so that the generation was 174 MW and 207 MW when the measurement was
carried out. The flue gas density , flow and head were noted under these generating conditions for
Units 3 & 4 and found to be very near in both the cases.
The instruments used were identical in both the cases. The readings were taken within a limited
time span so that the type of coal used in these measurements same.
Energy consumed by the two systems was measured over a period of 60 minutes at each
operating point to average out any transient behaviour.
At 174 MW load :
Total Energy Consumed by two ID fans of Unit 4(with VFD system) =1080 kWh
Power Consumption = 1080 kW
Total Energy Consumed by two ID fans of Unit 3(with Hyd.coupling)=1715 kWh

Power Consumption = 1715 kW

Power saved at 174 MW by VFD system = (1715-1080) MW=635 kW
At 207 MW load :
Total Energy Consumed by two ID fans of Unit 4(with VFD system) =1845 kWh
Power Consumption = 1845 kW
Total Energy Consumed by two ID fans of Unit 3(with Hyd.coupling)=2319 kWh
Power Consumption = 2319 kW
Power saved at 174 MW by VFD system = (2319-1845) MW=474 kW
Suppose in a year,operating hours are as follows :
At 207 MW Power generation = 5333 hrs
At 174 MW Power generation = 2667 hrs
Then corresponding PLF = (207x5333+174x2667)/(210x8760)
=0.852
So at the PLF of 0.852 , Energy savings with VFD , per unit per year(474x5333+635x2667)kWh = 4221 MWh
Energy consumed by air-conditioning of VFD in a year = 140 MWh
Net energy saving per unit (210 MW) per year at PLF of 0.852 = 4081 MWh
Net money saved considering the cost at Re. 1/ kWh = 40.81 Lakhs

Break-even period works out to be 5 years considering the additional cost on VFD -civil, electrical
and other mandatory erection and commissioning services.