Simulation of the Higher Harmonics Source Determination in Power Supply Systems

Abstract

The article deals with the issues of electricity quality in power supply systems. The quality of electrical energy is often determined not only by energy supplying organizations, but also by electricity consumers. A significant decrease in the quality of electricity inevitably leads to negative impacts on the electrical equipment of both energy enterprises and the consumers of electrical energy, providing these conditions for the occurrence of both technological and electromagnetic damage. Ultimately, it leads to financial losses and other undesirable consequences from violations of the electricity quality. The results of parameters measurements of the LED lamps modes operating obtained by the authors of the article are presented. The presence of electronic converters in these luminaires leads to the appearance of higher voltage and current harmonics. These results show that the massive use of LED lamps and other nonlinear consumers leads to a decrease in the quality of electricity in 0.38 kV electrical networks. On a computer model of the simplest power supply system with nonlinear consumers it is shown that constant monitoring of the values of load currents and voltages can be used to identify the causes of the appearance of current and voltage significant higher harmonics. Nonlinear resistances of load receivers or the sources of these harmonics are located in the electrical networks of power supply organizations. The use of resistance values monitoring in combination with monitoring the current with a frequency of more than 50 Hz in the neutral wire allows to determine with sufficient accuracy the cause of the distortions of the voltage and current curves sinusoidal shape.