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Power Line Disturbances: Sources and Effects

Power line disturbances can negatively impact sensitive equipment. Common disturbances include overvoltages, undervoltages, outages, voltage spikes, chopped waveforms, and harmonics. Sources of disturbances are diverse, such as changes in system load or starting of motors. The effects depend on the type, magnitude of disturbance and equipment design. Without proper protection, disturbances can cause equipment tripping or hardware failures.

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338 views

Power Line Disturbances: Sources and Effects

Power line disturbances can negatively impact sensitive equipment. Common disturbances include overvoltages, undervoltages, outages, voltage spikes, chopped waveforms, and harmonics. Sources of disturbances are diverse, such as changes in system load or starting of motors. The effects depend on the type, magnitude of disturbance and equipment design. Without proper protection, disturbances can cause equipment tripping or hardware failures.

Uploaded by

vijaya
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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POWER LINE DISTURBANCES: SOURCES AND EFFECTS

POWER LINE DISTURBANCES/DISTORTIONS:

Ideally, the voltage supplied by the utility system should be a perfect sine wave without
any harmonics at its nominal frequency of 60 Hz and at its nominal magnitude. For a 3-phase
system, the voltages should form a balanced set, with each phase displaced by 120 degrees
with respect to the others. In practice, however, voltages can significantly depart from the ideal
condition due to power line disturbances listed below:

1. Overvoltage or voltage swell – the voltage magnitude is substantially higher than its
nominal value for a sustained period of a few cycles.
2. Undervoltage or voltage sag or brownout – the voltage is substantially lower than its
nominal value for a few cycles.
3. Outage or blackout – the utility system voltage collapses for a few cycles or more.
4. Voltage spikes – these are superimposed on the normal 60 Hz waveforms and occur
occasionally (not on a repetitive basis).
5. Chopped voltage waveform – repetitive chopping of the voltage waveform and
associated ringing as shown below.

6. Harmonics – a distorted voltage wave form as shown below, contains harmonic voltage
components at harmonic frequencies (usually low order multiples of the line frequency,
these harmonics exist on a sustained basis.

7. Electromagnetic interference – refers to high frequency noise, which may be conducted


on the power line or radiated from its source.
SOURCES OF DISTURBANCES:

Sources of power line disturbances are very diverse.


- Overvoltages may be caused by sudden decreases in the system load, thus causing the
utility voltage to go up.
- Undervoltages may be caused by overload conditions, by start of induction motors, or
for many other reasons.
- Occasional large voltage spikes may be a result of switching in or out of power factor
correction capacitors, power lines, or even such things as pump/compressor motors in
the vicinity.
- Chopping of the voltage waveform may be caused by ac-to-dc line-frequency thyristor
converters, if such converters are used to interface the power electronic equipment
with the utility system. These converters produce a short circuit on the ac voltage
source through the ac system impedance on a repetitive basis.
- Voltage harmonics may be caused by a variety of sources such as magnetic saturation of
power system transformers and harmonic currents injected by power electronic loads.
These harmonic currents flowing through the ac system impedances result in harmonic
voltages.
- Electromagnetic interference is produced by most power electronics equipment due to
rapid switching of voltages and currents. It can also be produced by other
communication gadgets like cell-phones, radio transmitters and other similar devices.

EFFECTS OF DISTURBANCES ON SENSITIVE EQUIPMENT:

The effect of power line disturbances on sensitive equipment depends on the following
factors:
1. Type and magnitude of the power line disturbance
2. Type of equipment and how well it is designed
3. Presence of power conditioning equipment

- Sustained overvoltages and undervoltages may cause equipment to trip out, which is
highly undesirable under certain applications.
- Large voltage spikes may cause a hardware failure in the equipment. (Manufacturers of
sensitive equipment often provide a certain degree of protection by providing surge
arrestors at the input to guard against failures. However, spikes of very large magnitude
in combination with a higher frequency of occurrence can still result in a hardware
failure.)
- Chopped voltage waveforms and voltage harmonics have the potential of interfering
with the equipment if it is not designed to be immune from such effects. (Power
conditioners consisting of filters and an isolation transformer can correct such
problems)
- The effect of power system outage depends on the duration of the outage and the
equipment design.
Sensitive equipment may be found in the following systems:

- Medical facilities
- Life supporting systems
- Data storage and computer systems
- Emergency equipment
- Telecommunications
- Industrial processing
- On-line management systems

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