In this article, steps towards utilizing retiring thermal units as synchronous condenser for reactive power management are proposed. As per CEA's report “Details of Retirement of more than 25 years old Coal based Thermal Power Plants” thermal units with total capacity of around 6872.32 MW had retired since September 2015 to March 2018. Further, Coal based Units in Govt. Sector which could be retired in F.Y.2018–19 add up to around 4116.5 MW. If these retiring units are not utilized, they will turn into scrap. One of the step in this direction can be utilizing retiring units as synchronous condenser as a dynamic source of reactive power. The inertia of the synchronous machine rotor is probably one the main reasons for the recent growing interest in synchronous condenser applications. In case of a system with lower inertia the synchronous condenser is often the only available solution. In addition to that synchronous condenser also has several advantages such as it facilitates dynamic VAR compensation, has good overload capacity which improve system stability for solar or wind plant fed system and also maintains power quality.
Synchronous condenser, reactive power, retiring thermal units
