Passive wide spectrum filter for variable speed drives in oil and gas industry

Nonlinear loads such as variable speed drives constitute bulk of the load on power systems in oil and gas industry. These nonlinear loads are main sources of harmonics and responsible for most of the power quality problems. The passive filters have definite advantage over active filters in terms of components count, cost and reliability. Reliability and maintenance is a serious issue in drilling rigs which are located in offshore and on shore with extreme operating conditions. The passive wide spectrum filters are becoming increasingly popular in these applications and found to overcome some of the limitations of conventional tuned passive filter. This paper gives a complete analysis of wide spectrum passive filters, effect of load and source inductance on its characteristics. The analysis is supported with the simulation results and is being verified experimentally. The analysis given in this paper will be useful for the selection of proper wide spectrum filter for these applications.