Improving Power Quality in All Electric Ships Using a Voltage and VAR Integrated Regulator

Power quality is a key issue in island, shipboard integrated electric power systems (IEPS). However, it is not of easy accomplishment, due to the complexity of shipboard power station (generators are many and differ by sizes, prime movers, control systems, etc.) and to the intrinsic weakness of the shipboard grid. This paper presents a new approach for controlling voltage and reactive power generated in the power station of an all electric ship (AES). A shipboard voltage and VAr integrated regulator (WIRE) is proposed. The WIRE is aimed at controlling alternators voltage, main busbar voltage and jointly optimizing the reactive power generated by each alternator. WIRE project reunions into an integrated device the most advanced control functions presently implemented in smartest land power stations. WIRE is also endowed with an embedded power-station/IEPS real-time simulator, suitable for performing factory functional, diagnostic and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) tests. The paper will show how WIRE can improve power quality into an AES, while respecting marine constraints like: reduced room availability, redundancy, reliability, optimal and safe utilization of generators, fast commissioning, diagnostics.