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PowerCad Article Series
Electrical Engineering Design Software

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PowerCad-M PowerCad-PNL

Latest Version

5.0.80.1
20 August 2024

Next Training Workshop:

Dec 2024 - Melbourne
Feb 2025 - Sydney
Feb 2025 - Auckland

PART 3 OF A SERIES:

VARIABLE SPEED DRIVES – SELECTION & COMPLIANCE CHECKING TO IEEE 519 UTILISING POWERCAD-5 ELECTRICAL DESIGN SOFTWARE.

PowerCad-5 electrical engineering design software allows engineers to rapidly integrate variable speed drives (VSD) into the LV electrical distribution model for an Industrial project.


VSD configuration

The VSD location:

  • Within the motor control centre,
  • Remote, or
  • Close coupled to the motor

Harmonic Mitigation

PowerCad-5 offers the following Harmonic mitigation solutions:

  • Passive Filter: Line Passive filters can be added to the VSD
  • Active Filter: An Active filter added to the MCC bus

VSD motor feed cable

A VSD/EMC variable speed drive cable with 3 cores plus 3 earths and a copper tape screen can be selected as the feed cable from the VSD to the motor.



Figure 1


Codes/Standards

PowerCad-5 electrical engineering design software allows the user to select Codes/Standard for compliance checking from the following options.


Power Distribution - Conductor Loss:

  • Hong Kong Code of Practice for Energy Efficiency of Electrical Installations – 2002 Edition

Maximum Total Harmonic Distortion (THD):

  • IEEE Std 519:1992
  • Emirate of Abu Dhabi – Limits for Harmonics in the Electricity Supply System (2005)
  • Hong Kong Code of Practice for Energy Efficiency of Electrical Installations – 2002 Edition

Maximum Allowable Harmonic Current:

  • Emirate of Adu Dhabi - Limits for Harmonics in the Electricity Supply System (2005)

User defined:

  • Total Harmonic Current Distortion (THD) as %Fundamental or % RMS
  • Total Harmonic Voltage Distortion (THD) as %Fundamental

Variable Speed Drive selection

PowerCad-5 electrical engineering design software allows engineers to automatically select the variable speed drive based on the electric motor size selected. (See Figure 2 without filter) The variable speed drive can be selected with or without a Passive line filter. (See Figure 3 with filter)


Figure 3


PART 4 of this series will be published in Industrial Electrix, January – March 2010.

Click here to download a PDF version of this article.