Railway Static Power Conditioner Field Test

Abstract

This paper reports on the basic configuration of the railway static power conditioner (RPC), a static voltage compensator for AC electric railways. 20 MVA / 60 kV RPCs started commercial operation in 2002 at each substations on the newly extended Tohoku Shinkansen. The results of operational test indicate that an RPC can accommodate single-phase loads such as those of PWM-controlled Shinkansen and thyristor phase-controlled Shinkansen, handle the exciting rush current of transformers, as well as compensate for harmonics. The voltage fluctuations on the three-phase side were succcessfully controlled by the RPCs.