The new 150 Mvar, 18 kV Static Var Compensator at CERN: background, design and commissioning

A new Static Var Compensator (SVC) was designed, installed and commissioned by ABB for CERN’s Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) accelerator in 2002. Due to the sensitive nature of the pulsating power converter load for the SPS magnets, very strict requirements were imposed on the stabilisation of the 18 kV bus voltage and its harmonic distortion. The adopted solution comprises a 150 Mvar TCR and eight harmonic filters with a total power of 130 Mvar. The paper gives a detailed description of the project background, system design and SVC installation. Finally, the results of the SVC performance tests are presented.