An improved active power direction method for harmonic source identification

Abstract

Due to significant increment in harmonic polluting loads in the power system, there has been enhanced attention of the power professionals towards the estimation of harmonic signals and identification of their sources in the system. Harmonic source identification is an important step for proper accountability, monitoring, and mitigation of any harmonic pollution. The active power direction (APD) method is one of the conventional approaches for harmonic source detection in the distribution system. Although it is simple and easy to implement, serious concerns were raised on its validity, as the direction of active power is dependent on the phase angle. In this paper, APD is augmented with distorting and non-distorting power to improve its accuracy and reliability for harmonic source identification. The distorting and non-distorting portions of the loads are separated, and the distorting and non-distorting powers are calculated at each node. These calculated powers, in addition to the direction of the harmonic active power, are used to formulate the logic required for deciding the severity index at each node. The validity of the method has been tested on a single-phase network, an IEEE-5 bus system, and an IEEE-14 bus system. It has been observed that the proposed method provides good results than conventional APD with the same measurement requirement.