Power Quality (EPM495)

Prepared by

Dr. Nehad Khattab

The Power Quality Evaluation Procedure

The general procedure must also consider whether the evaluation

involves an existing power quality problem or one that could
result from a new design or from proposed changes to the system.
Types of Power quality investgation
1) Proactive approach
Intended to characterise the system performance. Helps to
understand and thus match the system performance with customer
neeeds.
1) Reactive approach
Intended to characterise a specific problem. Performs short term
monitoring at specific customers or at different loads
The Figure gives some general steps that are often required in a power
quality investigation, along with the major considerations that must be
addressed at each step.
1) Monitoring and Measurements will play an important role for
almost any power quality concern for both modeling and analysis
(attempts are taken to configure the disturbance, its occurrence,
sources and effects; mainly based on the mathematical
background).

2) Solutions need to be evaluated using a system perspective, and

both the economics and the technical limitations must be
considered. Possible solutions are identified at all levels of the
system from utility supply to the end-use equipment being
affected. Solutions that are not technically viable get thrown out,
and the rest of the alternatives are compared on an economic
basis. The optimum solution will depend on the type of
problem, the number of end users being impacted, and the
possible solutions.
3) Economics involved in solving a power quality problem must be
taken into consideration in this analysis. It is not always economical to
eliminate power quality variations on the supply side.
In many cases, the optimal solution to a problem may involve making
a particular piece of sensitive equipment less sensitive to power
quality variations. The level of power quality required is that level
which will result in proper operation of the equipment at a particular
facility.
Power quality monitoring
Power quality monitoring.is the process of gathering, analyzing,
and interpreting raw measurement data into useful information

The process of gathering data is usually carried out by continuous

measurement of voltage and current over an extended period.

The process of analysis and interpretation has been traditionally

performed manually, but recent advances in signal processing and
artificial intelligence fields have made it possible to design and
implement intelligent systems to automatically analyze and interpret raw
data into useful information with minimum human intervention.
1.1. Monitoring Considerations
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1. Monitoring as part of a facility site survey

2. Determining what to monitor
3. Choosing monitoring locations
4. Options for permanent power quality monitoring
equipment
5. Disturbance monitor connections
6. Setting monitor thresholds
7. Quantities and duration to measure
8. Finding the source of a disturbance
1.1.1.Common objectives of power quality monitoring

 Monitoring to characterize system performance.

Need to understand its system performance and then match that system
performance with the needs of customers
 Monitoring to characterize specific problems.
Performing short-term monitoring at specific customer sites or at difficult
loads.
 Monitoring as part of an enhanced power quality service.
A provider and customer can together achieve this goal by modifying the power
system or by installing equipment within the customer’s premises.
 Monitoring as part of predictive or just-in-time maintenance
Equipment maintenance can be quickly ordered to avoid catastrophic failure.
1.1.2. Monitoring as part of a facility site survey

1. Nature of the problems (data loss, nuisance trips, component fail- ures,
control system malfunctions, etc.)
2. Characteristics of the sensitive equipment experiencing problems
(equipment design information or at least application guide infor- mation)
3. The times at which problems occur
4. Coincident problems or known operations (e.g., capacitor switching)that
occur at the same time
5. Possible sources of power quality variations within the facility (motor
starting, capacitor switching, power electronic equipment operation,
arcing equipment, etc.)
6. Existing power conditioning equipment being used.
7. Electrical system data (one-line diagrams, transformer sizes and
impedances, load information, capacitor information, cable data, etc.)
1.1.3. Choosing monitoring locations

❖ The primary objective was to characterize power quality on

primary distribution feeders, monitoring was done on the actual
feeder circuits.
❖ One monitor was located near the substation, and two additional
sites were selected randomly.
❖ Monitoring locations should be at actual customer service entrance
locations because it includes the effect of step-down transformers
supplying the customer.
❖ Locate the monitors as close as possible to the equipment affected
by power quality variations.
❖ Monitor at the substation and at selected customer service
entrance locations. The substation is important because it is the
PCC for most rms voltage variations.
11 Figure: Typical distribution feeder monitoring scheme.
1.1.4. Options for permanent power quality monitoring
equipment
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Permanent power quality monitoring systems should take

advantage of the wide variety of equipment that may have the
capability to record power quality information.
Some of the categories of equipment that can be incorporated
into an overall monitoring system include the following:

1. Digital fault recorders (DFRs).

2. Smart relays and other IEDs.
3. Voltage recorders.
4. In-plant power monitors.
5. Special-purpose power quality monitors
6. Revenue meters
13 Figure: Illustration of system power quality monitoring concept with monitoring at the
substation and selected customer locations.
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1. Digital fault recorders (DFRs):
DFR will typically trigger on fault events and record the
voltage and current waveforms that characterize the event. This makes
them valuable for characterizing rms disturbances, such as voltage
sags, during power system faults. DFRs also offer periodic waveform
capture for calculating harmonic distortion levels.

2. Smart relays and other IEDs.

Many types of substation equipment may have the capability to
be an intelligent electronic device (IED) with monitoring capability.
Manufacturers of devices like relays and reclosers that monitor the
current anyway are adding on the capability to record disturbances and
make the information available to an overall monitoring system
controller. These devices can be located on the feeder circuits as well
as at the substation.

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3. Voltage recorders
The voltage recorder provides a trend that gives the maximum,
minimum, and average voltage within a specified sampling window
(for example, 2 s). With this type of sampling, the recorder can
characterize a voltage sag magnitude adequately. However, it will not
provide the duration with a resolution less than 2 s.
4. In-plant power monitors
Particularly those located at the service entrance, can be used as
part of a utility monitoring program. Capabilities usually include wave
shape capture for evaluation of harmonic distortion levels, voltage
profiles for steady-state rms variations, and triggered wave shape
captures for voltage sag conditions.
6. Revenue meters.
Revenue meters monitor the voltage and current anyway, so it
seems logical to offer alternatives for more advanced monitoring that
could include recording of power quality information.
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5. Special-purpose power quality monitors.

The monitoring instrument developed for the EPRI DPQ project

was specifically designed to measure the full range of power quality
variations.
This instrument features monitoring of voltage and current on
all three phases plus the neutral. A 14-bit analog-to-digital (A/D) board
provides a sampling rate of 256 points per cycle for voltage and 128
points per cycle for current. This high sampling rate allowed detection
of voltage harmonics as high as the 100th and current harmonics as
high as the 50th.

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1. 3 Power Quality Measurement Equipment

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Basic categories of instruments that maybe applicable include

1- Wiring and grounding test devices

2- Multi meters
3- Oscilloscopes
4- Disturbance analysers
5- Harmonic analysers and spectrum analysers
6- Combination disturbance and harmonic analysers
7- Flicker meters
8- Energy monitors
Other instruments that can be used to help solve power quality
problems by measuring ambient conditions:

❖ Infrared meters can be very valuable in detecting loose

connections and overheating conductors.

❖ Noise problems related to electromagnetic radiation may

require measurement of field strengths in the vicinity of affected
equipment. Magnetic gauss meters are used to measure magnetic
field strengths for inductive coupling concerns. Electric field
meters can measure the strength of electric fields for
electrostatic coupling concerns.

❖ Static electricity meters are special-purpose devices used to

measure static electricity in the vicinity of sensitive equipment.

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Regardless of the type of instrumentation needed for a particular test,
there are a number of important factors that should be considered
when selecting the instrument. Some of the more important factors
include
• Number of channels (voltage and/or current
Ø
• Temperature specifications of the instrument
• Ruggedness of the instrument
• Input voltage range (e.g., 0 to 600 V)
• Power requirements
• Ability to measure three-phase voltages
• Input isolation (isolation between input channels and from each
input to ground)
• Ability to measure currents
• Housing of the instrument (portable, rack-mount, etc.)
• Ease of use (user interface, graphics capability, etc.)
• Documentation
• Communication capability (modem, network interface)
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Analysis software
1.2.1. Wiring and grounding test devices
Many power quality problems reported by end users are caused by
problems with wiring and/or grounding within the facility. These
problems can be identified by visual inspection of wiring,
connections, and panel boxes and also with special test devices for
detecting wiring and grounding problems.
Important capabilities for a wiring and grounding test device include
Ø Detection of isolated ground shorts and neutral-ground bonds

Ø Ground impedance and neutral impedance measurement or indication

Ø Detection of open grounds, open neutrals, or open hot wires

Ø Detection of hot/neutral reversals or neutral/ground reversals

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1.2.2. Multimeters
After initial tests of wiring integrity, it may also be necessary
to make quick checks of the voltage and/or current levels within a
facility. Overloading of circuits, under voltage and overvoltage
problems, and unbalances between circuits can be detected in
this manner. These measurements just require a simple multi meter.
Signals used to check for these include:
Phase-to-ground voltages
Phase-to-neutral voltages
Neutral-to-ground voltages
Phase-to-phase voltages (three-phase system)

The most important factor to consider when selecting and using a

multimeter is the method of calculation used in the meter. All the
commonly used meters are calibrated to give an rms indication for
the measured signal. However, a number of different methods are used
to
22 calculate the rms value.
The three most common methods are
1.Peak method: Assuming the signal to be a sinusoid, the meter reads
the peak of the signal and divides the result by 1.414 (square root of 2) to
obtain the rms.

2.Averaging method: The meter determines the average value of a

rectified signal. For a clean sinusoidal signal (signal containing only one
frequency), this average value is related to the rms value by a constant.

3.True rms: The rms value of a signal is a measure of the heating that
will result if the voltage is impressed across a resistive load. One method
of detecting the true rms value is to actually use a thermal detector to
measure a heating value.

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1.2.3. Disturbance analyzers
Disturbance analyzers and disturbance monitors form a
category of instruments that have been developed specifically for
power quality measurements. They typically can measure a wide
variety of system disturbances from very short duration transient
voltages to long-duration outages or under voltages. Thresholds can be
set and the instruments left unattended to record disturbances over a
period of time. The information is most commonly recorded on a
paper tape, but many devices have attachments so that it can be
recorded on disk as well. There are basically two categories of these
devices:
1.Conventional analyzers that summarize events with specific
information such as overvoltage and undervoltage magnitudes, sags
and surge magnitude and duration, transient magnitude and duration,
etc.
2.Graphics-based analyzers that save and print the actual waveform
along with the descriptive information which would be generated by
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one of the conventional analyzers
It is often difficult to determine the characteristics of a disturbance
or a transient from the summary information available from
conventional disturbance analyzers. For instance, an oscillatory
transient cannot be effectively described by a peak and a duration.
Therefore, it is almost imperative to have the waveform capture
capability of a graphics-based disturbance analyzer for detailed
analysis of a power quality problem (Fig. 5.2). However, a simple
conventional disturbance monitor can be valuable for initial checks at
a problem location.

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1.2.4. Spectrum analyzers and harmonic analyzers

Harmonic analyzers have several capabilities. They capture harmonic

waveforms and display them on a screen. They calculate the K factor
to de rate transformers and the total harmonic distortion (THD) in
percent of the fundamental. They also measure the
corresponding frequency spectrum, i.e., the harmonic frequency
associated with the current and voltage up to the fiftieth harmonic.
They display the harmonic frequency on a bar graph or as the signal’s
numerical values.

Some measure single-phase current and voltage while others measure

three-phase current and voltage. All of them measure the power factor
(PF). The power factor provides a measurement of how much of the
power is being used efficiently for useful work. Some can store data
for a week or more for later transfer to a PC for analysis.
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This makes them powerful tools in the analysis of harmonic
power quality problems. Some of the more powerful analyzers have
add-on modules that can be used for computing fast Fourier transform
(FFT) calculations to determine the lower- order harmonics. However,
any significant harmonic measurement requirements will demand an
instrument that is designed for spectral analysis or harmonic analysis.
Important capabilities for useful harmonic measurements include
• Capability to measure both voltage and current simultaneously so
that harmonic power flow information can be obtained.

■ Capability to measure both magnitude and phase angle of

individual harmonic
components (also needed for power flow calculations).

■Synchronization and a sampling rate fast enough to obtain accurate

measurement of harmonic components up to at least the 37th
harmonic (this requirement is a combination of a high sampling rate
and a sampling interval based on the 60-Hz fundamental).
There are basically three categories of instruments to consider for
harmonic analysis:
1. Simple meters. It may sometimes be necessary to make a quick check of
harmonic levels at a problem location. A simple, portable meter for this purpose is
ideal. There are now several hand-held instruments of this type on the market.
Each instrument has advantages and disadvantages in its operation and design. These
devices generally use microprocessor-based circuitry to perform the necessary
calculations to determine individual harmonics up to the 50th harmonic, as well as
the rms, the THD, and the telephone influence factor (TIF). Some of these devices can
calculate harmonic powers (magnitudes and angles) and can upload stored waveforms
and calculated data to a personal computer.

2. Special-purpose power system harmonic analyzers. Besides the general- purpose

spectrum analyzers just described, there are also a number of instruments and
devices that have been designed specifically for power system harmonic analysis.
These are based on the FFT with sampling rates specifically designed for determining
harmonic components in power signals. They can generally be left in the field and
include communications capability for remote monitoring
.
1.2.5 Flicker meters
1- RMS strip charts.
Historically, flicker has been measured using rms meters, load duty cycle, and a
flicker curve. If sudden rms voltage deviations occurred with specified frequencies
exceeding values found in flicker curves, such as one shown in Fig. 11.16, the system
was said to have experienced flicker. A sample graph of rms voltage variations is
shown in Fig. 11.17 where large voltage deviations up to 9.0 V rms ( V/V± 8.0
percent on a 120-V base) are found.

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2- Fast Fourier transforms.

Another method that has been used to measure flicker is to take raw samples of the
actual voltage waveforms and implement a fast Fourier transform on the
demodulated signal (flicker signal only) to extract the various frequencies and
magnitudes found in the data. These data would then be compared to a flicker curve.
Although similar to using the rms strip charts, this method more accurately quantifies
the data measured due to the magnitude and frequency of the flicker being known.

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1.3. Assessment of Power Quality Measurement Data
Standards
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There are two streams of power quality data analysis, i.e.,
off-line and on-line analyses.
1. The off-line power quality data analysis is performed off- line at
the central processing locations.
2. The on-line data analysis is performed within the instrument
itself for immediate information dissemination.

1.3.1. Off-line power quality data assessment:

Off-line power quality data assessment is carried out separately from
the monitoring instruments. Dedicated computer software is used for
this purpose.
Large-scale monitoring projects with large volumes of data to
analyze often present a challenging set of requirements for software
designers and application engineers.
The new standard format for interchanging power quality data the
Power Quality Data Interchange Format (PQDIF) makes sharing of
data between different types of monitoring systems much more
feasible.
1.3.2. On-line power quality data assessment
On-line power quality data assessment analyses data as they are
captured. The analysis results are available immediately for rapid
dissemination. Complexity in the software design requirement for
on-line assessment is usually higher than that of off-line.

One of the primary advantages of on-line data analysis is that it

can provide instant message delivery to notify users of specific
events of interest. Users can then take immediate actions upon
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receiving the notifications.
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