Harmonic Fault Diagnosis in Power Quality System Using Harmonic Wavelet

Abstract

The increasing use of non-linear loads such as power electronics, converters, arc furnaces, transformers, fluorescent and high intensity discharge lights have caused harmonics distortion in power quality (PQ) systems. On the other hand, harmonics have numerous effects on electrical systems. For examples, they can be troublesome to communication systems, they increase heating in the transformers and motors, and consequently decrease their life cycle. The first step to address these issues is to diagnose harmonic faults in power distribution systems. This paper introduces a new method for detecting harmonic faults using harmonic wavelets. For this purpose, harmonic wavelet transform (HWT) is used to decompose the faulty signal at different levels. Then, the energies of the decomposition levels based on parseval’s theorem are computed. Finally, the faulty signal is reconstructed with harmonics wavelets. Simulation results show that the suggested fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) system can successfully identify the maximum harmonic in the faulty signal and the amount of harmonics in the faulty signal compared to fundamental signal.