Electrical behaviour of the pump working as turbine in off grid operation

Highlights: • Self-excited induction generator is an excellent solution to operate isolated to grid. • PAT system shows lower efficiencies when the SEIG is not optimized. • Tuning methodology to optimize the capacitance is crucial to increase the efficiency. • PAT isolated to grid can be operated under variable operation strategy. • PAT-SEIG is a novelty tested solution to operate isolated to grid. - Abstract: The use of pumps working as turbines (PATs) connected to the electric system, in the replacement of pressure reduction valves to reduce the excessive pressure in water distribution networks, have been studied for the last years. The introduction of PATs is very important in the water-energy nexus to promote the increase of the energy savings. As consequence, the majority of the water systems does not have access to the electrical grid and, therefore, the need to study the PATs operation off-grid is necessary. In this line, the novelty of this research is the application and optimization of a PAT in water systems when the recovery solution is off-grid type. To operate correctly, the induction machine requires an external source of reactive power, which is typically provided by the electrical grid. To supply the required reactive power, a bank of capacitors is installed at the machine terminals, so-called self-excited induction generator (SEIG). The analytical model, simulation and experimental works were performed, to analyse the SEIG behaviour. The results were applied in a SEIG-PAT system obtaining the global efficiency of the system for different speeds and loads. The global efficiency decreases 47% when off-grid operation, showing the need to optimize the electrical parameters of the generator to operate as off- grid with acceptable efficiency levels. In this framework, a tuning methodology for the SEIG capacitor bank values was developed to be automatically adjusted according to the operating point of the PAT to maximize its efficiency.