A Novel Power Measurement Method Using Lock-In Amplifiers with a Frequency-Locked Loop

Abstract

The extensive use of renewable energy systems with grid-connected inverters (GCIs) causes harmonic injection. Similarly, the imbalance in energy demand and supply causes frequency fluctuations. As a result of the increased harmonics and frequency fluctuations, the accuracy of power measurement using conventional methods continues to decline. Precision in power measurement is an essential factor for the billing and management of power supply and demand. Moreover, it is challenging to build a supply plan for the power demand and to manage the billing for the power consumption. To solve these problems, this paper proposes a novel method based on Lock-in Amplifier (LIA) and Lock-in Amplifier Frequency-Locked Loop (LIA-FLL) to measure the power with high precision and accuracy. The proposed method first tracks the variations in the input signal frequency using LIA-FLL and generates the updated reference signals for LIA. After that, the LIA is used to extract the accurate amplitude of each frequency component. The proposed method results in accurate and precise measurement, even with harmonics and frequency fluctuations. The validity of the proposed method is verified by comparing the power measurement results with the classical method, FFT, and ZERA COM3003 (a commercially available power measurement reference instrument).