Snowdrift, good morning on a snowy day at elevation in NH in Mid April.. I cannot begin to express my excitement... and I won’t.. lol..

From digging my 16th 48” pier for my deck extension yesterday, to watching white poo out the window today.. 

You bring up a great discussion point with regards to the electrification of these plants. I came across an LKAB electrical expansion project.

In no fault of our own as I don’t think many of us here are electrical engineers, I don’t think many of us can appreciate the complexity in the electrification of these fossil fuel burner plants.

Will they need to determine as to whether or not there is significant harmonic distortion introduced with the torches thus requiring filtering? 

I keep hearing some concern about plants being underpowered going forward with plasma torches. I’m not so sure and maybe Peter will chime in or if there’s is an electrical engineer on the payroll? Lol.

Please correct me if I’m wrong, are these torches not a DC (direct current) arc? 

If so, then whereby 3 phase AC has to be supplied at the plants currently,  then we are talking about AC/DC converters/converters isolation transformers, etc, I should think? It may be where the torch power plant IS DC and isolated, it may NOT be an issue where filtering is a concern.

I may be way off base with this assumption but, I would also assume the torches are configured in a parallel relationship vs series? I will have my ass handed to me here if incorrect I’m certain and justifiably so. 

This DC plant (iIF DC powered) will require significant CAPEX and procurement I suspect.

The point is: The  plants more than likely have to determine what kind of filtering (if any) needs to be implemented? With a single torch in place with customer “A”, they may be able to extrapolate data and know the appropriation needed across a 50 torch configuration to make that filtering determination? It may take time to fine tune this though and it is an issue that MUST be fine tuned for obvious reasons. 

This is beyond the company’s control but it is one of those unforeseen things that investors just may not be able to appreciate and no fault of their own.

Here is the link for the excerpt below and I encourage all to have a read so as to appreciate the complexity involved in this massive transition by these plants .

Again, thanks for bringing the subject up so as to peel back the onion a bit to show it isn’t just a matter of plugging these things in on a wing and a prayer.. 

Fine tuning the electrical plant is a science as well.

Unlike “Uncle Ron”... I’m often wrong.. I’m married so this is an occupational hazard byproduct.... 

Be well Sir. and ya gotta be in.. to win..

https://library.e.abb.com/public/cff57bf6c29b53c8c125748a002514e3/SME_08-038_11_Pelletizing_Ahrens.pdf

“General Design Aspects of Power Factor Compensation and Harmonic Filtering Systems

Passive filtering requires particular attention to the emission

spectrum of the loads. This is especially true when interharmonics are present as well. The risk of exciting parallel resonances is a real concern and therefore passive filters in general should be damped. Usually large power installations require a careful and complete investigation to define the filtering system. Moreover, passive filters cannot be operated independently of each other or independently of other reactive power compensation systems. Therefore the complete installation should be considered in the analysis and design of passive filter systems.”.