Approach to determine harmonic contributions in distribution networks using underdetermined blind source separation and form similarity distance

Abstract

This study proposes a new approach to determine harmonic contributions in distribution networks. The approach effectively combines underdetermined blind source separation (UBSS) and form similarity distance (FSD), and it aims to minimise the negative impacts of harmonic source coupling and background harmonic fluctuations. Considering the underdetermined measurement, UBSS is introduced to estimate the harmonic emission current in the light of the sparsity of source signals. Through analysing the form variation features of harmonic time series, FSD is applied to identify the relatively stable background harmonics for utility equivalent harmonic impedance calculation. Furthermore, a complete procedure of harmonic contribution assessment is presented. To verify the high performance of the proposed approach, the simulation study and field test are both conducted, and a detailed comparative analysis of different approaches is carried out. The results show that the proposed approach is able to more accurately determine harmonic contributions than the existing methods, and has better robustness against significant harmonic source coupling and drastic background harmonic fluctuations.