Pre-operational Studies of the Madeira River Complex

At Santo Antônio plant, from 2015’s second semester,the first generating units located in the river bed were incorporated, reaching a total of 35 machines in commercial operation at the end of that year. At Jirau, the entry into operation of new units throughout the year increased to 37 the number of generators foroperation.

In 2015, the energy generated at the Madeira Complex was flowed by Bipole 1 (3,150 MW), by the back-to-back converter station (2 x 400 MW) and during some periods of the year, also by the TF-13 500 / 230 kV - 465 MVAtransformer.

The biggest challenge was enabling Bipole 2 field tests (3,150 MW), since the entry into operation of this second Bipole will ensure full expected generation flow for the Complex’s plants in the years to come. Thus, several pre-operation studies were conducted, including real-timeenvironment simulation analyzes (RTDS), considering the control and protection systemsreplicas of the two Bipoles and the back-to-back converter station.

ONS’s and the transmission and generation agentsmain actions aimed at makingthe operation of theMadeira ComplexHVDCsystem smoother, with regard to control and protection of the twoDCBipoles, supplied by different manufacturers.

Positive results were also obtained in tests carried out by generation agents to assess the effectiveness of black-start systems, designed to allow starting of plants without using external source.