Impact of circuit-breaker maintenance on life-cycle cost comparison for fixed and magnetically controlled reactors

Under light loading conditions, reactors provide an option for keeping voltages below steady state limits. In this paper, the impact of the number of operations of a circuit breaker on the choice of reactor technology (i.e. fixed versus magnetically controlled) is studied. In particular, the impact of circuit-breaker maintenance cost on the life-cycle cost of a reactor installation is evaluated. The study shows that when the expected number of circuit-breaker operations is high, it is beneficial to consider the use of a magnetically controlled reactor as this leads to very few operations. In addition, the savings in circuit-breaker maintenance cost can justify the extra cost of a magnetically controlled reactor over its life cycle. The economic life-cycle cost assessment can help to identify the lowest cost solution over the project life cycle.