wilson e3+ ultra-low loss amorphous transformer at dovecote park

Projects
Dovecote Park

Enhancing power quality with on-load tap changer

Dovecote Park is a British meat processing company specialising in high-quality, premium beef. It is the exclusive beef supplier to Waitrose, providing high-welfare, British-reared beef from carefully selected farms across the UK. Located in West Yorkshire, the company offers other products like veal and venison for the retail, fine dining and food sectors nationwide. The company is known for its commitment to animal welfare and husbandry, sustainability, and traceability.

Dovecote Park recognises the importance of a resilient infrastructure. Poor power quality costs the UK industry and commerce billions of pounds in lost revenue annually. These losses will almost certainly rise as instability is exacerbated by the electrification of vehicles and increasing utilisation of important renewable sources, such as wind and solar farms. Although harmonic distortion and the associated heating effect on transformers are often the key focus of power quality studies, voltage dips are arguably the most common and troublesome characteristic for facility operators. In an ideal world, these emerging risks would be monitored, and mitigation hardware would be implemented before costly events manifest.

Sector	Food & Beverage and Manufacturing
End User	Dovecote Park Ltd
Location	Pontefract, West Yorkshire
Scope of Work	3MVA Wilson e3+ Ultra Low Loss Amorphous® Transformer coupled with a 9-position on-load tap changer (OLTC)

Inrush currents from motor loads were creating short-duration voltage dips on the low-voltage network. Due to the proximity of a wind turbine on the 11kV network, the effect of these events was amplified, as the voltage level increased and decreased, subject to the capacity of the generation. The worst-case scenario at Dovecote Park prevailed during typical peak demand periods, when the turbine was not generating power. The dips in the chart below represent the most extreme voltage values, and the duration of which was generally between 10 and 400ms.

Third-party analysis identified the benefits of replacing the existing transformer with a 3MVA Wilson e3+ Ultra Low Loss Amorphous Transformer and a 9-position on-load vacuum tap changer. The primary purpose is to reduce the grid swing and mitigate the risk of critical plant and equipment failure from under-voltage. An automatic adjustment in 1.5% increments would improve voltage management by reducing the grid swing, regardless of the upstream wind turbine's site demand and/or generation level. The chart below exhibits the improvement in voltage management after installation. Grid swing was reduced by 38V (U), the average value was reduced by 10V (U), and under-voltage events were mitigated satisfactorily.

Annual Savings

14.4 tCO₂

carbon savings

12316

reduced costs

Based on £0.18/kWh

68426 kWh

energy savings

in transformer losses & voltage management

The financial benefits of successfully mitigating existing and emerging risks may be considerable, but due to production variables, they are difficult to determine. However, the approximate energy savings associated with this transformer upgrade have been calculated by the Remote Power Quality Reporting & Analytics Platform using site-specific load, network and profiling data, resulting in the following findings:

Reduction in core losses (P.A): 16,281kWh
Reduction in winding losses (P.A): 22,252kWh
Voltage management reduction (P.A): 29,893kWh

Transformer replacement with Wilson e3+ Ultra Low Loss Amorphous

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Europe’s most efficient distribution transformer

Upgrading to Wilson e4 Ultimate Low Loss Amorphous® Transformer provides you with substantial carbon, energy and financial savings. Use our payback calculator to find our potential savings.

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