Introduction
The strength of the Centre comes from its wide ranging expertise in
both power systems and customer loads, its strong contacts with
industry and its knowledge of international research efforts. The
Centre operates a modern laboratory with equipment and instrumentation
necessary to undertake a range of investigations into both power
systems and equipment behaviour.
The Centre offers a consultancy service as well as continuing
education courses. The Centre has expertise and experience in the
following areas: -
- Power Quality - standards, instrumentation, monitoring, analysis, reporting, improvement, equipment behaviour
- Harmonic Studies - modelling, analysis, mitigation, instrumentation
- Voltage Sags - modelling and analysis
- Transients - modelling and analysis
- Conducted EMI
- Distribution system reliability
- Renewable energy systems
Consultancy
The Centre has extensive consulting experience and has provided
consultancy services to some of Australia's largest manufacturing
companies and electricity utilities. The Centre provides expert advice
and consulting in the areas of
Monitoring instrument in the field
- Investigation and resolution of power quality problems
- Power quality monitoring for compliance with standards and regulations including harmonic and flicker studies
- Connection agreements
- Harmonic and flicker allocation studies
- Voltage sag studies
- Interpretation of power quality standards
- Routine power quality monitoring
- Power quality data analysis and reporting
- General power monitoring
- Distribution system reliability
- Equipment power quality immunity testing to national and international standards
- Equipment performance testing
- Conducted EMI
Simple telephone/email enquiries will be dealt with free of
charge. More extensive investigations will be charged at commercial
rates.
Contact Person on consulting/technical advice:
The Centre has provided consultancy services to the following organisations:
- Agility
- AGL
- Alinta
- Aurora Energy
- Ausgrid (formerly EnergyAustralia)
- Australia Post
- BHP Billiton
- Blue Circle Southern Cement
- Bluescope Steel
- Boyne Smelters
- Bradken
- CHK Engineering
- Country Energy
- Endeavour Energy (formerly Integral Energy)
- Energex
- Ergon Energy
- esaa
- Genesis Energy (NZ)
- Incitec
- Metal Manufacturers
- NSW Fair Trading
- Powercor
- Powerlink
- Qenos
- Rheem Australia
- SA Power Networks (formerly ETSA)
- SP AusNet
- Standards Australia
- Telstra
- Transend Networks
- TransGrid
- Tycan Australia
- United Energy
- Western Power
Laboratory equipment
The Centre operates a number of laboratories for teaching and
research purposes. Teaching laboratories contain modern specialised
equipment for teaching subjects such as power systems, drives and
renewable energy systems.
The Power Quality and Renewable Energy Research Laboratory has a
range of equipment useful for a broad range of research. This includes
power quality immunity testing of equipment and evaluation of
equipment performance characteristics. Hardware is complimented by
advanced software packages allowing simulation and analysis. Key
equipment for the laboratory includes:
California Instruments 30 kVA
programmable arbitrary
waveform generator
- California Instruments 30 kVA programmable arbitrary waveform
generator (including Omni Impedance Network). To view details of
the capabilities of this device see the
MX Programmable Power Source flyer
- 100 kW, 3000rpm, 1000Nm 4-quadrant dynamic dynamometer
- dc to 1 MHz 3-phase harmonic analyser
- dc to 2.5kHz single-phase portable harmonic analyser
- Conducted EMI measuring equipment up to 64 A, 3 phase, near field E-H field probes
- Low frequency magnetic field measuring equipment
- 5 PM30, 1 PM40 and 3 PM45 Power Quality Monitoring Instruments
- 2 Hioki 3196, and 3 Hioki 3198 Power Quality Analysers
- 1 Dranetz PowerXplorer PX5 Power Quality Monitoring Instrument
- 1 Elspec BLACKBOX Portable Power Quality Analyzer
- 100 pF, 100 kV standard capacitor and 1000:1 voltage divider
- 3 x 5 kW Terra Solar Array Simulators
- 3 x 4.5 kW Chroma Electronic Loads
- Energy storage systems for distributed generation research
- Various software packages such as PSCAD/EMTDC, PSS/E and DigSilent
100 kW, 3000rpm, 1000Nm 4-quadrant dynamic dynamometer
Continuing education
The Centre prepares courses at undergraduate, post-graduate and
continuing education levels. Regular continuing education courses are
delivered on the following topics: -
- Quality of Electrical Supply
- Electrical Drive Systems
- Power Quality from an Energy Managers Perspective
Workshops on Australian and International Standards are also
available. Specially tailored courses on various aspects of power
engineering can be arranged upon request (minimum numbers apply).
The Centre specialises in developing inexpensive but powerful
software simulation tools to accompany its courses.
For further information and enquiries see the training page or
contact the Power Quality and Reliability Centre.
Advanced data acquisition system for teaching