Taking Care of Motor Inrush Before the Water Rushes In
Stormwater management in Central California is not only complicated — it’s also an urgent priority. Present and future impacts of climate change are trending toward more periods of extreme heat, increased storm intensity and higher potential for flooding. Meanwhile, the state’s water resources are evermore constrained. This confluence of events has prompted statewide initiatives to improve the capture and reuse of stormwater runoff.
A project underway by a California civil engineering team will do itspart for the cause. The firm is building a stormwater pumpingstation outside of Sacramento to support a perfect storm ofpopulation growth and dynamic weather patterns.On the surface, the pumping station design seems relativelystraightforward: Three large pumps come online sequentially aswater rises in the flood basin. With a combined horsepower (HP)of up to 1650, these pumps represent the systems’ largestoperating load.In reality, the equipment specs obscured some special challengesposed by this application. The local utility expressed concerns thathigh motor inrush at pump startup would produce voltage sagsand negatively affect neighboring customers. It just so happenedthat the project design included a reduced voltage auto transformer(RVAT) to compensate for this weak network and the voltage variationscaused by transfer switching. But even the RVAT didn’t limit inrushcurrent enough to comply with utility voltage drop requirements.
Deja una respuesta