INFLUENCE OF REACTIVE POWER COMPENSATION ON THERMAL STABILITY OF NEUTRAL WIRE IN LOW VOLTAGE CITY NETWORKS

The use of modern single-phase household electrical appliances and office equipment leads to significant reactive power consumption by power consumers of cities. Unbalanced load by phases in urban four- and five-wire electrical networks up to 1000 V creates conditions for thermal destruction of neutral wire due to the flow of currents close in value or exceeding currents in phases. To justify a rational reactive power compensation system, it is necessary to analyze the electrical consumption of urban power consumers. To confirm the relevance of current reducing task in neutral wire of network, it is necessary to analyze accident rate of urban electrical networks up to 1000 V. Solution to the problem of eliminating conditions for thermal destruction of neutral wire can be the reconstruction of urban cable lines in order to replace them with lines with a large neutral wire section. However, this solution is very labor intensive and expensive. The purpose of this study is to determine whether it is possible to reduce current in neutral wire to acceptable continuous values using effective reactive power compensation.