POWER QUALITY

Chapter I

Power Quality Monitoring

Introduction

As discussed in the previous chapters we as end user customers as well as the generation utilities both are
very much concerned about the quality of power consumed and delivered respectfully. Power quality
monitoring is a broad term and has a vital importance in the power system. There are many power quality
related terms which are to be given great importance for smooth functioning of the power system. There
are some power system parameters which need continuous monitoring like the voltage, frequency, power
factor etc. The Power quality parameters should also be continuously monitored and thus the Power
Quality analyzer are used which are designed for such events to be recorded. There are also some
parameters which these analyzers are supposed to record. Today there are many such power quality
analyzers which come with advanced features.

6.1 Power Quality Monitoring Considerations:

The monitoring objectives often determine the choice of the monitoring equipment, triggering thresholds,
interpretation requirement, data acquisition, storage and analysis.

Power quality monitoring is the process of gathering, analyzing and interpreting raw measurement data
into usable information. The process of measurement is usually carried out by continuous measurement of
current and voltage over an extended period. The process of analysis and monitoring was usually carried
out by traditional method but advances in signal processing, data processing and artificial intelligence has
made it feasible to make intelligent systems to analyze and interpret data.

Need for Power Quality Monitoring:

Much industrial, commercial and residential equipment are sensitive to variation in voltage and frequency
hence it is very important to monitor the quality of power delivered and consumed. Computer systems,
data processing centers, telecommunication facilities, pharmaceutical laboratories, electronic
manufacturing facilities are sensitive to power quality disturbances.

Objectives of Power Quality monitoring

1. Monitoring to characterize system performance

Need to understand the system performance and then match the system performance with the
need of consumers.

2. Monitoring to characterize a specific problem

Performing short term monitoring at specific customer sites or at difficult loads.
 3. Monitoring as a part of enhanced power quality service
Both the generation utility and the consumers can achieve this goal by installing specific devices
in the consumer premises.

4. Monitoring as a part of predictive or just in time maintenance

Equipment maintenance can be quickly ordered to avoid disastrous failure.

Monitoring as a part of facility site survey

1) Nature of problem like data loss, control system malfunction, nuisance tripping, component
failure etc.
2) Characteristics of the sensitive equipment experiencing problems like equipment design
information
3) Incident at whichfault occurs
4) Co-incident problem or known operations.
5) Possible sources of power quality variations within the facility like arcing operation, motor
starting, capacitor switching, operation of power electronic equipment.
6) Use of existing power conditioning equipments.
7) Electric system data like single line diagrams, transformer sizes and impedences, load
information, cable information, capacitor information etc.

Choosing Monitoring locations:

1) The monitoring locations should be at actual customer service entrance locations because it
includes the effect of step down transformers which supplies the customers.
2) The monitors should be as close to the equipment which is vulnerable and most frequent to be
affected by the Power quality variation’s.
3) Monitor at the substation and at specific customer locations, as the substation is the PCC for
most of the RMS voltage variations.

6.2 Power Quality monitoring equipment’s

Some of the equipment’s related to power quality monitoring include:

1) Digital Multimeters
2) Power quality analyzer
3) Oscilloscopes
4) Disturbance analyzer
5) Harmonic and spectrum analyzer
6) Flicker meter
7) Energy monitors
8) Wiring and grounding devices
Factors to be considered for selection of Power quality equipment’s:

1) Sampling time
2) Memory capability
3) User Interface
4) Recording
5) Communication compatibility
6) Size
7) Cost
8) Power requirement

6.2.1 Digital Multimeters-

A digital multimeter is a test tool which is used to generally measure two or more electrical
parameters. Generally multimeters are used to measure the resistance, current and voltage.
The broader perspective may add to frequency, noise, temperature, capacitance, continuity
etc. It is a primary diagnostics tool for technicians in the electronic and electrical industry.
Digital multimeters have replaced the conventional analog meters because of its accuracy and
multi-function.

Fig: 6.2.1.1 Digital Multimeter

 Fig 6.2.1.2 Block diagram of Digital Multimeter

The DMM’s (Digital Multimeters) generally operate on the principle of Analog to Digital
conversion (ADC). DMM is known as the successive approximation register or SAR. The
successive approximation register ADC operates by successively homing in on the value of
the incoming voltage.The first stage of the process is for the sample and hold circuit to
sample the voltage at the input of the DMM and then to hold it steady. The ADC is the
important part of the conversion system as the quantities to be measured are in the form of
analog signals and digital output is optimized.

6.2.2 Power Quality Analyzer

Power quality analyzer plays a very important role in the power quality analysis. Today a lot
of manufacturers are involved in manufacturing and distribution of these analyzers due to
concerns related to power quality. Today power quality analyzer are capable of measuring a
wide range of parameters some of which can be enlisted as current, voltage, energy, power,
harmonics, Voltage sag, Swell, disturbances, graphical representation etc. Most power quality
analyzers today are equipped with touchscreen for the convenience of the user. Selection of
appropriate Power quality analyzer is very important, key factors like cost, input channels,
size, user interface, memory, sampling time are to be given prime importance.
 Fig 6.2.2.1 Power Quality Analyzer

6.2.3 Oscilloscopes:
Oscilloscope is a device commonly used to display and analyze various types of waveforms.
In short the device draws a graph of instantaneous signal voltage as a function of time. It can
display both AC (Alternating current) and DC (Direct current) waveforms from very low
frequencies ranging from a few Hertz to several Mega Hertz. There a also some super utility
Oscilloscopes which display frequency rising till a few GigaHertz. In the oscilloscope time is
displayed on the X-axis and the instantaneous value on the Y-axis with both positive and
negative parameters. The older form of oscilloscopes made use of CRTs (Cathode ray tube)
now specific use of LCDs is done on a larger scale.Some terms related to the oscilloscope
include use of storage of waveforms, multiple waveforms, battery power, spectral analysis,
zoom in and out, sweep rate, vertical deflection.

Fig: 6.2.3.1 Digital Oscilloscope

 Fig 6.2.3.2 Block diagram of Oscilloscope

The CRT (Cathode ray tube) emits electrons which, strikes the phosphor screen internally to
provide a visual display. The vertical amplifier is used to amplify the signals in the vertical
section. The delay line resembles a delay of representation of the signal in vertical section.
The time base generator maintains the sawtooth voltage which is required for beam deflection
in horizontal section.Horizontal amplifier is used to amplify the sawtooth voltage before it is
applied to horizontal deflection plates. The trigger circuit is used to convert the incoming
signal into usable trigger pulses so that input signal and sweep frequency can be
synchronized.

6.2.4 Disturbance Analyzer

Disturbance analyzers are specifically developed for measurement of any disturbance which
is unwanted in the power system. Disturbance analyzers are capable of measuring from short
term transients to long term voltage variations. Here thresholds can be set and the device can
be kept unattended on the site to measure any disturbance occurred in the event of time. The
information is recorded and the user can access as per his convenience. Generally disturbance
analyzer can be categorized as conventional and graphic based aanalyzers.
 Fig 6.2.4.1 Disturbance Analyzer output

6.2.5 Harmonic and Spectrum analyzer

Disturbance analyzer type instruments have limited harmonic measurement capability. Some
powerful analyzers have add-on modules which are capable of measuring low order
harmonics using FFT (Fast Fourier Transforms). Harmonic analyzer should be capable of
measuring both current and voltages simultaneously. It should be capable of measuring both
magnitude and phase angle of individual harmonic component. It should also be designed
with a low sampling time for more accurate results. There are generally 3 types of
instruments for harmonic analysis namely simple meter, general purpose spectral analyzer
and special purpose power system harmonic analyzer each used as per application.
Simple meters are used for quick check of harmonic levels at a problem location; it is a kind
of simple portable meter. These devices generally make use of microprocessor based circuit
to perform necessary calculations from individual harmonics to the 50 th order.The general
purpose spectrum analyzers are designed to perform spectrum analysis on waveforms for a
wide range of applications. The special purpose power system harmonic analyzers are
specifically designed for harmonic analysis using FFT with a sampling rate best suitable for
detailed Harmonic analysis.
 Fig 6.2.5.1 Harmonic analyzer with current probes

6.2.6 Flicker Meters

Flicker is defined as unsteadiness felt on human eye.IEEE Standards 141-19936 and 519-
19927 both contain flicker curves that have been used as guides for utilities to evaluate the
severity of flicker within their system. Fig 6.2.6.1 represents the flicker curves from
standards IEEE 141 and IEEE 519. The IEC flicker meter is the standard for measuring
flicker in Europe and other countries currently adopting IEC standards. The IEC method for
flicker measurement, defined in IEC Standard 61000-4-158 (formerly IEC 868), is a very
comprehensive approach to flicker measurement. Because of the complexity of quantifying
flicker levels that are based upon human perception, the most comprehensive approach to
measuring flicker is to use flicker meters. A flicker meter is essentially a device that
demodulates the flicker signal, weights it according to established “flicker curves,” and
performs statistical analysis on the processed data.
Generally, these meters can be divided up into three sections. In the first section the input
waveform is demodulated, thus removing the carrier signal. As a result of the demodulator, a
dc offset and higher-frequency terms (sidebands) are produced. The second section removes
these unwanted terms using filters, thus leaving only the modulating (flicker) signal
remaining. The second section also consists of filters that weight the modulating signal
according to the particular meter specifications. The last section usually consists of a
statistical analysis of the measured flicker.
 Fig 6.2.6.1

Fig 6.2.6.2 IEC Flicker meter

 Block 1 above is an input voltage adapter that scales the input half-cycle rms value to an internal
reference level. This allows flicker measurements to be made based upon a percent ratio rather than be
dependent upon the input carrier voltage level.

Block 2 is simply a squaring demodulator that squares the input to separate the voltage
fluctuation (modulating signal) from the main voltage signal (carrier signal), thus simulating the behavior
of the incandescent lamp.

Block 3 consists of multiple filters that serve to filter out unwanted frequencies produced from
the demodulator and also to weight the input signal according to the incandescent lamp eye-brain
response.

Block 4 consists of a squaring multiplier and sliding mean filter. The voltage signal is squared to simulate
the nonlinear eye-brain response, while the sliding mean filter averages the signal to simulate the short-
term storage effect of the brain. The output of this block is considered to be the instantaneous flicker
level. A level of 1 on the output of this block corresponds to perceptible flicker.

Block 5 consists of a statistical analysis of the instantaneous flicker level. The output of block 4 is
divided into suitable classes, thus creating a histogram. A probability density function is created based
upon each class, and from this a cumulative distribution function can be formed.

6.2.7 Data Loggers

A data logger is any device that can be used to store data. This includes many data acquisition
devices such as plug-in boards or serial communication systems which use a computer as a real time data
recording system.

Selection criteria for data logger

-Input signal

-Number of inputs

-Speed memory

-Real time operation

6.3 Assessment of Power Quality Measurement Data

Power quality data analysis can be done on both off-line and on-line basis
a) Off-line power quality data assessment:
It is carried out separately from the measuring instruments; use of computer
software tool is done for this purpose. The PQDIF (Power quality data
interchange format) makes sharing of data between monitoring systems more
feasible. This means that applications for data management and data analysis can
be written by third parties and measurement data can be accessible. The offline
power quality data assessment usually relates to viewing of individual disturbance
events. RMS variation analysis which includes voltage swells and sags based on
CBEMA and ITI curves and computation of rms indices like SAIDI, SAIFI,
CAIDI etc. Harmonic analysis which can be performed for voltage and current
analysis along with, transient analysis to analyze the duration of events and
disturbances. Further daily, weekly and monthly reports can be procured for
research and analysis. Problems and identification related to protective devices,
use of energy, power quality levels and equipment performance can be further
evaluated.

b) On line power quality data assessment:

This feature analyses data as it is captured, the analysis results are available for
quick dissemination. It is equipped with modern feature like quick delivery of
message to the user in the event of any fault or disturbance, thus the user can take
immediate decision depending upon the occurred event.

6.4 Application of intelligent systems

-Power quality monitoring systems may be equipped with both online and offline
monitoring system which can be used in the event of fault or disturbance or well
before an event has occurred.
- It improves the reliability of the system as the service engineerscan take
preventive action.
-The intelligent systems can monitor as well as record data.
-The system is equipped with modules which can be used for analysis of various
individual events.

6.5 Power Quality monitoring standards

The IEEE 1159 is a guide for monitoring it is used to provide guidelines for
power quality monitoring and standard definitions for power quality related terms.

The IEEE 1159.1 is developing guidelines for instrumentation requirements

associated with different types of power quality phenomena. It is related to issues
like ADC, sampling rate, synchronization, accuracy etc.
The IEEE 1159.2 is developing guidelines characterization of power quality
problems which relate to power quality variation, phase shift, magnitude and
phase angle, voltage sags etc

The IEEE 1159.3 is related to the exchange of power quality monitoring

information between different applications. It is related to the co-ordination
between various equipment’s such as fault detection system and the recording
system etc.

The IEC 61000-4-30 is related to the testing and measurement techniques

The IEC 61000-4-7 provides specifications for monitoring harmonic distortion
levels.

The IEC 61000-4-15 provides specifications for monitoring flicker.

6.6 Resurgence of DG

The term ‘Resurgence’ refers to revival, in this case the revival of the present
system of generation and transmission of electrical energy. Today we are
dependent upon the ‘wires’ system for the generation of electrical energy at the
source and its transmission to the source.
Although this type of generation and distribution is a conventional one and has
lasted to meet the global needs. Although it comes with a lot of draw backs like
the cost of wires, its installation and commissioning. The need of the hour is
concentrating of other means of power generation like the renewable energy
sources which are proven to be reliable and a promising option in the near future.
The concept of co-generation is also to be relied upon. Smaller sources of
generation like the mini hydro, small wind turbines, solar panels should be
considered and utilized to its optimum level.
The present technique of power transmission is through wires rather alternatives
like transmission through pipes and use of fuel should be considered. The
availability of the generation sources near the load can again lead to reduction in
transmission losses and reduced cost of conductors.