“We have much more transparency in the distribution grids.”

Fran­co Piz­zut­to, Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Man­ag­er at MR, on the devel­op­ment of ECOTAP® VPD® and its areas of appli­ca­tion.


What was important in the development of the ECOTAP® VPD®?

From the out­set, our aim was to devel­op a com­pact on-load tap-chang­er that would enable volt­age reg­u­lat­ing dis­tri­b­u­tion trans­form­ers (VRDTs) that would fit into exist­ing sub­sta­tions. It also had to be afford­able so that it could be used across the board, and instal­la­tion also had to be as sim­ple as pos­si­ble. Anoth­er impor­tant point was that it should be main­te­nance-free so that net­work oper­a­tors would have as lit­tle work as pos­si­ble with it. And I would say that we have suc­ceed­ed!

MR has already sold 10,000 ECOTAP® VPD®. How has the tap-changer evolved since its launch?

The ECOTAP® VPD®, which is now in its third gen­er­a­tion, has enabled VRDTs to become stan­dard in dis­tri­b­u­tion net­works. We have been able to suc­ces­sive­ly reduce the weight, and the con­trol unit is ultra com­pact at 10 cen­time­ters wide and 32 cen­time­ters high. We have also been able to reduce the costs and there­fore the price by opti­miz­ing the design so that it can be par­tial­ly auto­mat­ed and man­u­fac­tured in large quan­ti­ties. The range of appli­ca­tions has also been extend­ed. The ECOTAP® VPD® is now not only suit­able for dis­tri­b­u­tion grids, but can also keep pro­duc­tion sta­ble in indus­tri­al plants or help to get more out of renew­able ener­gy sys­tems. We have also tak­en cus­tomer feed­back into account and intro­duced a MODBUS inter­face for com­mu­ni­ca­tion, for exam­ple.

“With the third gen­er­a­tion of the ECOTAP® VPD®, the VRDT has become the stan­dard in dis­tri­b­u­tion grids.”

Fran­co Piz­zut­to, Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Man­ag­er

Are further innovations planned?

In future, we want to offer dynam­ic set-point con­trol as an option in the form fac­tor of the stan­dard con­troller. Until now, this has only been avail­able as an addi­tion­al mod­ule which takes up addi­tion­al instal­la­tion space. While the stan­dard con­trol algo­rithm uses a fixed volt­age set­point as the tar­get val­ue, dynam­ic con­trol allows the tar­get val­ue to be adjust­ed up or down depend­ing on the dai­ly con­sump­tion and gen­er­a­tion sit­u­a­tion.

What potential still exists?

Dig­i­tal­iza­tion gives us many oppor­tu­ni­ties to bring more trans­paren­cy to dis­tri­b­u­tion grids. This makes it much eas­i­er, for exam­ple, to exam­ine the actu­al load pro­file in an area to deter­mine how many addi­tion­al PV sys­tems can actu­al­ly be includ­ed and how many wall box­es can be per­mit­ted. The mea­sure­ment data from the ECOTAP® VPD® con­troller can be used here to record the actu­al trans­former load pro­file: What is my max­i­mum feed-in, what is my max­i­mum load? Oper­a­tors can use such data to plan their grids much more effi­cient­ly.


Allrounder

The ECOTAP® VPD® is a clever solu­tion for sev­er­al appli­ca­tions.

Capacity
expansions in the local network

Capacity expansions
in the local network

The dis­tri­b­u­tion grid is the main area of appli­ca­tion for the third-gen­er­a­tion ECOTAP® VPD® with 30 amps. It keeps the volt­age in the local grid sta­ble, increas­es the absorp­tion capac­i­ty, and is designed for trans­form­ers up to a volt­age class of 24 kilo­volts.

Relieving the medium voltage

Relieving the medium voltage

The ECOTAP® VPD® also saves on grid expan­sion in the medi­um-volt­age grid and, by decou­pling the low volt­age from fluc­tu­a­tions in the medi­um volt­age, the VRDT also makes a larg­er volt­age band avail­able there. When used over a wide area, the usable volt­age band is extend­ed, thus increas­ing the absorp­tion capac­i­ty.

Stable industrial processes

Stable industrial processes

If a very pre­cise volt­age or a larg­er con­trol range is required, the ECOTAP® VPD® with 100 amps and a pre­s­e­lec­tor is the right choice. It offers 17 oper­at­ing posi­tions and sup­plies indus­tri­al, agri­cul­tur­al, and com­mer­cial process­es with a defined and sta­ble volt­age band.

Optimum use of renewables

Optimum use of
renewables

The ECOTAP® VPD® can also be used to opti­mize renew­able ener­gy gen­er­a­tion sys­tems because a VRDT enables more through­put pow­er for the invert­er and makes it eas­i­er to meet grid con­nec­tion require­ments. And, thanks to its small size, it even fits into trans­form­ers in wind pow­er nacelles.

Save
electricity

Save electricity

The VRDT can also help to save ener­gy because tar­get­ed volt­age reduc­tion in the dis­tri­b­u­tion grid can reduce elec­tric­i­ty con­sump­tion. This method, called Con­ser­va­tion Volt­age Reduc­tion (CVR) has been shown in a study by the British grid oper­a­tor Elec­tric­i­ty North West (ENWL) to reduce con­sump­tion by up to 8 per­cent.

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