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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 22, NO. 2, APRIL 2007

On the Analysis of Voltage and Current

Transients in Three-Phase Power Systems
Math H. J. Bollen, Fellow, IEEE, and Irene Yu-Hua Gu, Senior Member, IEEE

AbstractThis paper proposes a method for analyzing measurements of voltage transients in three-phase systems. The method is
based on the Clarke transform introduced in 1950 for calculations
of travelling waves along three-phase transmission lines. The proposed method also shows close similarities with the classification
of three-phase unbalanced voltage dips. After extracting the actual
transient (e.g., by using a notch filter centered on the power-system
frequency), the three signals are decomposed into seven components. From the relation between these seven components, the dominant component is identified. The method is successfully applied
to a number of measured transients. The paper also identifies the
limitations of the method and gives suggestions for future work.
Index TermsCapacitor energizing, electromagnetic compatibility (EMC), power quality, power-system transients, power
transmission and distribution.

I. INTRODUCTION

RANSIENTS are subcycle deviations from the normal

voltage or current waveform. A number of causes of
transients can be identified: lightning strokes, switching actions
in the distribution or transmission system, self-clearing faults
or faults cleared by current-limiting fuses, and the switching of
end-user equipment. The latter mainly causes local transients
within the customer premises, whereas distribution or transmission-system switching causes transients for a larger number
of customers. The origin of transients in the grid is described in
detail in a number of books: [1], [2] and more recently [3].
In the power-quality literature, transients are mainly treated
as a disturbance occurring at the terminals of equipment, where
the emphasis is on single-event characteristics as rise-time, peak
voltage and duration. A good overview of transient test waveforms and their origin is presented in [4, Ch. 10]. Transients
are an important part of the power-quality mitigation issues discussed in [5]. Transients are further treated in [6, Ch. 4] and [7,
Ch. 6 and 7].
Transients do not normally cause the widespread inconvenience as interruptions or dips. The consequences of a transient are in many cases limited to local equipment. Because the

Manuscript received November 7, 2005; revised June 5, 2006. Paper no.

TPWRD-00651-2005.
M. H. J. Bollen is with STRI AB, Ludvika, 771 80, Sweden and also
with Lule University of Technology, Skellefte 931 87, Sweden (e-mail:
math.bollen@stri.se).
I. Y. H. Gu is with the Department of Signals and Systems, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg 412 96, Sweden.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2007.893613

shorter duration, transients require a wider band-width measurement circuit and higher sampling rate. Therefore, large-scale
data collection of transients is much less common than data collection for dips and interruptions. All of this has led to an underexposure of transients in the power-quality literature. However, also voltage transients may have adverse consequences on
end-user equipment, including maloperation and damage.
Low-frequency transients (from 250 Hz up to several hundred
Hertz) due to capacitor-bank energizing have received the most
attention in the power-quality literature due to their adverse impact on adjustable speed drives (e.g., [8] and [9]). Phenomena,
such as current-chopping and restrike after capacitor de-energizing, may also lead to severe transients and equipment maloperation or damage.
Different methods are available for the analysis and characterization of transients, but all of these methods consider each
phase separately. No method is available for addressing transient multiphase measurements. Transients in three-phase systems are complicated, especially when switching actions in the
three phases take place close together in time. The development
of a three-phase analysis or classification method for powersystem transients would simplify the characterization of threephase transients. More importantly, it would allow the further
development of methods for extracting additional information
from recordings of voltage and current transients in three-phase
systems, such as direction and origin.
Motivated by the above issues, a method will be proposed
in this paper for the decomposition of voltage and current transients in three-phase systems. The paper starts with a general
discussion on analysis of transients in Section II, to explain the
role of the proposed method in the overall processing of transients. The theoretical foundation of the decomposition method
is presented in Section III. Section III also shows the equivalence between the proposed method and the classification of
three-phase unbalanced voltage dips and discusses a method for
determining the dominant component. A number of measurement examples are presented in Section IV. Some limitations
and implementation issues are described in Section V. As this
is a new method a discussion on further work including testing
is part of Section VI. Finally, Section VI concludes the paper.
II. ANALYSIS OF TRANSIENTS
The overall analysis of transients in three-phase systems, as
envisaged by the authors, is shown schematically in Fig. 1. From
the three measured voltages the actual transient is extracted. The
decomposition algorithm proposed in this paper is applied to
the extracted transient, resulting in seven components. After the

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III. DECOMPOSITION METHOD

A. Clarke Transform

Fig. 1. Analysis chain of transients in three-phase power systems.

selection of the dominant component, the actual analysis takes

place.
The extraction of the actual transient is typically a two-stage
process consisting of triggering and a kind of high-pass
filtering to remove the steady-state component. Different
advanced signal-processing methods have been proposed in
literature for both triggering and for removing the steady-state
component. Wavelet filters are the most-commonly proposed
method, but model-based methods are proposed for triggering
as well.
Methods for removing the steady-state component include
high-pass filters, notch filters and subtracting the fundamental
component or the pre-event waveform. Different methods for
extracting the transient are discussed in [7]. In this paper, a
simple notch filter is used to extract the transient. The recordings analyzed in this paper were obtained by a power-quality
monitor with build-in triggering. Neither triggering nor extraction of the transient will be discussed further in this paper.
The next step is the decomposition of three phase voltages
into seven components in a similar way as the decomposition
of complex phasors into symmetrical components. This is the
main subject of this paper; it will be discussed in detail below.
Note that the decomposition method results in seven components. The selection of the dominant component or components
is needed to create signals that behave as in single-phase systems. Also the selection of the dominant component will be further discussed in the remainder of this paper. Further analysis of
the transients may consist of the classical characterization into
a magnitude and duration (e.g., as proposed in an annex to IEC
61000-4-30 [10]). Those characterization methods are applied
to the dominant component only.
Further analysis should in future also include directional
finding, origin of the transient and even system diagnostics.
For directional finding, the dominant voltage and current
components may be compared. Also more advanced analysis
methods can be applied to the dominating component, such as
wavelet decomposition or the ESPRIT method for estimating
the frequency components [11], [12]. For estimating the origin
of the event (e.g. using automatic classification methods like
expert systems or neural networks) or for system diagnostics,
additional information may be extracted from the waveforms
like the amplitude and distortion before and after the transient
[13] and the point-on-wave at which the transient occurs. As
the currents and voltages in the dominant component behave
as in a single-phase system, the further analysis becomes much
easier. The development of such methods is however outside
of the scope of this paper.

The start of the decomposition method is the so-called Clarke

transform as introduced by E. Clarke [14] to simplify calculations of travelling waves along overhead transmission lines.
The method is discussed among others in [15, Sec. 5.4] and in
[16, Sec. 6.2.1]. The Clarke transform relates phase voltages and
component voltages through the following matrix expression:
(1)
The components are referred to as alpha component, beta
component, and zero-sequence component. The advantage
of this method over the symmetrical component transformation
is that the transformation matrix only contains real elements.
This makes it possible to apply the transformation in time domain.
B. Voltage Dip Classification
A method for classification of three-phase unbalanced voltage
dips has been introduced in [17]. The method is based on a
systematic study of the dips due to different types of faults
and their propagation through different types of transformerwinding connections. A mathematical basis for the method, including a way of extracting the dip characteristics from measurements, were developed later [18]. This method has shown
its use not only in voltage-dip characterization but also in extracting further information from a voltage recording [19] and
in developing a testing protocol for three-phase converters [20].
The basic classification distinguishes between Type C dips and
Type D dips, corresponding to phase-to-phase and phase-toneutral drops in voltage, respectively. The complex voltages in
the three phases for a type Ca dip are as follows:

(2)
with the pre-event voltage and the characteristic (residual)
complex voltage.
The expressions for a Type Da dip are

(3)
The alpha-component in (1) gives a voltage in phase a and the
opposite voltage of half the amplitude, in phases b and c. This
corresponds to the type Da dip. The beta-component gives a
voltage in phase b and the opposite voltage in phase c. This
corresponds to a type Ca dip. The zero-sequence component
results in the same voltage in the three phases. Rewriting (2)

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and (3) in terms of changes in complex voltage, results for type

Da in

with an inverse transformation

(11)
(4)
and for type Ca in

Note that the zero-sequence component is the same in all three

cases, so that only seven different components exist. All seven
components can be obtained from the phase voltages by combining (7), (9), and (11), resulting in the following matrix expression:

(5)
Substituting
results in (1).

in (4) and

in (5)

(12)

C. Seven Transient Components

As shown in the previous section, the alpha and beta components in (1) may be referred to as the Da and Ca component,
respectively. The same notation as for voltage dips will be used
in this paper for transients, so that (1) is written as

(6)

To calculate the component voltages from the phase voltages,

the inverse transformation of (6) is needed

(7)

The other dip types can be obtained by cyclic rotation of (6) and
(7). The following expressions hold for the Db and Cb components:

(8)

D. Extracting the Dominant Component

At this stage, it is very important to realize that the proposed
decomposition is not the standard decomposition of
signals
into
orthogonal modes. In other words: these seven components are not mutually independent. To understand the correlations between these seven components, consider six fundamental transients corresponding to voltage differences between phase a and ground; between phase b and ground; between phase c and ground; between phase b and c; between
phase a and c; and between phase b and c. The fundamental
transients are referred to as Da, Db, Dc, Ca, Cb, and Cc, respectively. For example, six different phase-to-ground and phase-tophase capacitor switching events will lead to these six fundamental transients; switching a capacitor between phase b and c
results in a Ca transient, etc.
Consider a type Da (fundamental) transient. After calculating
the phase voltages from (6) and substituting these into (12), the
seven components result

with an inverse transformation

(9)
(13)
and for the Dc and Cc components

(10)

The Da component is the dominating component (the one

with the highest absolute value), but four other components also
have a non-zero value. Only the Ca and zero-sequence components are zero: Da, Ca, and the zero-sequence component form
orthogonal bases.

BOLLEN AND GU: ON THE ANALYSIS OF VOLTAGE AND CURRENT TRANSIENTS

1197

The relation between the six fundamental transients and the

six non-zero-sequence components is given by

(14)

with the following cross-coupling matrix:

The zero-sequence component

(not shown in the crosscoupling matrix) has no cross-coupling with any of the other
components. Equally, no cross-coupling exists between Da and
Ca, between Db and Cb, and between Dc and Cc. Another conclusion that can be drawn from the cross-coupling matrix is that
there are only three combinations that form an individual set of
orthogonal bases: ( , Da, Ca), ( , Db, Cb) and ( , Dc, Cc).
The six-by-six cross-coupling matrix
in (13) is obtained
by considering one event type at the time, as in the example for
event type Da in the beginning of this section. The cross-coupling between the components implies that there are always
at least four non-zero component voltages. Let the dominating
component (the one corresponding to the event type) have a
magnitude of 100%, then two other components will have a
magnitude of 86% and the remaining two 50%.
Therefore, a method is needed to determine which of the
six non-zero-sequence components is dominant. Such a method
could simply select the component with the highest magnitude
or alternatively detect the pattern between the different components. A useful pattern is that the component orthogonal to the
dominant component (Da for Ca, etc.) is in the ideal case zero. In
the implementation to be discussed in Section IV the rms value
over a 2-ms window is used to find the dominant component and
the difference between the dominant component and its orthogonal components is used as a verification.
IV. MEASUREMENT EXAMPLES
The method introduced in the previous section has been implemented and applied to a number of measured transients.
The transient is extracted in each of the three phases by
using a second-order notch-filter centered at the nominal
power-system frequency (50 or 60 Hz) with a bandwidth of 30
Hz.
The seven modes are calculated from the extracted transients
at each time instant, by using (12). This results in seven waveforms as a function of time. The zero-sequence component can
be treated separately because it has no correlation with any of
the other components.
The dominant component is extracted by calculating the rms
value of each of the six non-zero-sequence components over

Fig. 2. Voltage recording due to capacitor energizing in a three-phase system

(left) and the extracted transient after applying a notch filter (right).

Fig. 3. Original waveforms (top left), extracted transients in the three phases
(top center), and the seven components for a measured transient. Example I.

a 2-ms window. The dominant component is the one with the

highest rms value. To verify the result, the difference in rms
value between the C and D components is calculated as well

(15)
For example, if
component.

is the highest, Da or Ca is the dominant

A. Example I
An example of a measured transient is shown on the left-hand
side of Fig. 2. The transient is due to the closing of one phase
of a three-phase capacitor bank.
The extracted transient is shown on the right in the same
figure. The non-zero signal before the start of the event is due
to the method for extracting the transient being non-ideal. Harmonic distortion is not removed by the notch filter. An appropriate high-pass filter would remove the harmonic distortion but
would also remove a significant part of the transient as its main
frequency components are around a few hundred Hertz.
The seven transient components are shown in Fig. 3. Also,
the original waveform and the extracted transients for the three
phases are shown.

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Fig. 4. The 2-ms rms values for the six components in Example I: Da and Ca
(left); Db and Cb (center); Dc and Cc (right). The D components are indicated
by solid lines; the C components by dashed lines.

Fig. 7. Original waveforms (top left), extracted transients in the three phases
(top center), and the seven components for a measured transient. Example III.

Fig. 5. Original waveforms (top left), extracted transients in the three phases
(top center), and the seven components for a measured transient. Example II.

Fig. 6. The 2-ms rms values for the six components in Example II: Da and Ca
(left); Db and Cb (center); Dc and Cc (right). The D components are indicated
by solid lines; the C components are indicated by dashed lines.

Fig. 8. The 2-ms rms values for the six components in Example III: Da and Ca
(left); Db and Cb (center); Dc and Cc (right). The D components are indicated
by solid lines; the C components by dashed lines.

case. Strictly-speaking the zero-sequence component should be

referred to as the dominating component in this case. But in
the same way as for the classification of three-phase unbalanced
voltage dips, the zero-sequence component will be treated separately. Another interesting observation from the plots is that
and
have the most smooth waveform. Methods for extracting the oscillation frequency and time constant [11], [12]
will be most successful when applied to these components.
C. Example III

The 2-ms rms values are shown in Fig. 4 for the six non-zerosequence components. As Dc is the highest and Ca the lowest,
Dc is found to be the dominant component and the event is classified as a type Dc transient (i.e., a transient between phase C
and ground).
B. Example II
A second example is given in Fig. 5: it is again the transient
due to closing of one phase of a three-phase capacitor bank.
From the 2-ms rms values shown in Fig. 6, it follows that this is
a type Da transient.
Note that the zero-sequence component is much higher than
in the first example. Whereas the zero-sequence component was
about half the dominating component in the first example, it is
even somewhat higher than the dominating component in this

Figs. 7 and 8 show the results of applying the method to

a third example. This recording contains two transients, about
one-and-a-half cycle apart in time. The first transient is classified as a type Cc transient. A Cc transient corresponds with a
switching action between phases a and b. With such a switching
action, one would not expect a zero-sequence component, in the
same way as there is no zero-sequence component associated
with type C voltage dips. A closer inspection of the zero-sequence component shows that it is damped very quickly. This
may be due to a small difference in closing instant between the
phases a and b. The second transient is of type Dc and is probably caused by the closing of the third phase.
D. Example IV
An example of a current transient is shown in Figs. 9 and 10.
The recording is obtained in a low-voltage network close to a

BOLLEN AND GU: ON THE ANALYSIS OF VOLTAGE AND CURRENT TRANSIENTS

Fig. 9. Original waveforms (top left), extracted transients in the three phases
(top center), and the seven components for a measured transient. Example IV.

1199

Fig. 11. Original waveforms (top left), extracted transients in the three phases
(top center), and the seven components for a measured transient. Example V.

Fig. 12. The 2-ms rms values for the six components in Example V: Da and Ca
(left); Db and Cb (center); Dc and Cc (right). The D components are indicated
by solid lines; the C components by dashed lines.
Fig. 10. The 2-ms rms values for the six components in Example IV: Da and Ca
(left); Db and Cb (center); Dc and Cc (right). The D components are indicated
by solid lines; the C components by dashed lines.

medium-size industrial company. The transient is due to load

switching on the customer premises. The event is classified as
a type Ca transient, as a switching action between phases b and
c. The current transient caused a voltage transient that is also
classified as a type Ca transient.
E. Example V
The fifth example is the voltage transient due to synchronized
capacitor energizing. Comparing with the previous examples
clearly shows the mitigating effect of synchronized switching.
The results of applying the decomposition method are shown
in Figs. 11 and 12. The waveform traces for the 6 components do
not reveal any dominant component. The rms values do however
reveal clearly that the transient starts as a type Cc and changes
to a type Dc.
The capacitor bank in this case is star-connected but not
grounded. Two phases are energized at the zero-crossing of
their voltage difference; the third phase is one quarter cycle
later. The CcDc classification is in agreement with this
switching order. Note that Cc and Dc are the only components
that show a smooth damped waveform; the other ones are all
a superposition of two components. The oscillation frequency
and other single-event indices should be extracted from Cc and
Dc.

Fig. 13. Original waveforms (top left), extracted transients in the three phases
(top center), and the seven components for a measured transient. Example VI.

F. Example VI
A final example of a transient is shown in Fig. 13. The origin
of this transient is unknown. Neither the waveform traces in
Fig. 13 nor the rms traces in Fig. 14 reveal any dominant component. The differences between corresponding D and C components, according to (15), are shown in Fig. 15. A sequence
CbDcCa would fit with the observations but no conclusion
about the origin could be derived from that. Further studies

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Fig. 14. The 2-ms rms values for the six components in Example VI: Da and Ca
(left); Db and Cb (center); Dc and Cc (right). The D components are indicated
by solid lines; the C components by dashed lines.

method similar to the one presented here is used for selection

of the faulted phase with some algorithms for travelling-wave
based protection [21], [22]. The coupling between the components is also there mentioned as making the selection more difficult. Note that the superimposed components mentioned in
[22] correspond to the extracted transients in this paper.
The characterization method introduced here for transients
on three-phase systems is comparable to the characterization of
voltage dips under the assumption that the PN-factor remains
equal to 1 per-unit [18]. This is an acceptable assumption for
single switching events, either between phase and ground or between two phases. We saw however when analyzing voltage dips
in three phases, that a second characteristic is needed, which
is the PN-factor, to cover dips due to two-phase-to-ground and
three-phase faults. Such an extension may also be needed for
the characterization of transients.
VI. CONCLUSION

Fig. 15. Difference between the rms values for Da and Ca (solid); Db and Cb
(dashed); and Dc and Cc (dotted), for Example VI.

are needed to understand such complex transients, for example

a large number of simulated transients using an electromagnetic-transient-type power-system analysis package.
V. LIMITATIONS OF THE METHOD
The proposed method for characterization and classification
of transients in three-phase systems gives a satisfactory result
for most of the measured transients studied by the authors. The
method is, however, based on the underlying assumption that
no two switching actions occur at the same time. In Example V
the two switching actions could still be distinguished because
their time difference was somewhat more than one cycle of the
transient oscillation. Any smaller difference in time will make
that it is no longer possible to extract a dominant component.
The same holds when three switching actions occur shortly after
each other. An example of a non-classifiable transient is Example VI in the previous section.
There are a number of reasons why the classification algorithm works less well for transients than for voltage dips. The
first reason is due to the measurement method: the harmonic distortion in the original waveform causes an error in the extracted
transient. For small transients this may make the classification
more difficult. The second source of error is due to the method
used for extracting the transient. A change in fundamental component leads to an oscillation in the output of a notch filter that
adds to the actual transient.
Another source of error is in the model used for the system.
The Clarke transform is based on a balanced model of the power
system: all three phases are equal and the coupling between
each pair of phases is equal. Whereas this is a reasonable model
for fundamental frequency, it may no longer be acceptable for
higher frequencies. The non-balanced character of the system
manifests itself as a coupling between the components: thus
Ca, Da, and zero-sequence are no longer fully decoupled. A

A method has been proposed for decomposing a three-phase

voltage or current transient into seven components. The method
is based on the Clarke transform, but contrary to the Clarke
transform the resulting components are non-orthogonal. The result is a cross-coupling between the components. It is shown that
the proposed method is equivalent to a method for classification
of three-phase unbalanced voltage dips and to methods used for
travelling-wave-based protection of transmission lines.
The method has been applied to a number of transients measured at different voltage levels. It has been possible to identify
the dominant component for most of the studied cases. A further
study of a large number of transient recordings, preferably with
a known origin, is needed to find the limitations of the method.
Simulations are needed to generate further test waveforms, especially for more complex events.
Further work is also needed towards the development of a
more advanced method for determining the dominant component. In this paper a simple rms-based method was used, but
this limits the range of oscillation frequencies that can be covered. Model-based methods may be more appropriate.
The proposed method may find applications in the characterization of voltage and current transients in three-phase systems and in the definition of standard waveforms for testing
of end-user equipment against voltage transients. However, the
most promising application envisaged by the authors is in automatic and manual methods for extracting additional information
from disturbance recordings. Advanced signal-processing tools
like wavelet filter banks and ESPRIT frequency decomposition
should be applied to the dominant component.
The analysis method proposed in this paper only considers
phase-to-phase and phase-to-neutral voltages. Transients affecting the voltage difference between the neutral and the
protective earth cannot be studied by using this method. Other
methods are needed or the proposed method may have to be
extended.
The proposed method may also be used to study the initiation of voltage dips due to fast-developing faults and the voltage
recovery taking place at different time instants in the different
phases after two-phase-to-ground or three-phase faults.

BOLLEN AND GU: ON THE ANALYSIS OF VOLTAGE AND CURRENT TRANSIENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank A. Ferguson of Scottish
Power, C. Roxenius of Gteborg Energi, H. Seljeseth of Sintef,
and P. Halvarsson of Trinergi for the measurement data used in
this paper.
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Math H. J. Bollen (M93SM96F04) received the

M.Sc and Ph.D. degrees from Eindhoven University
of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, in 1985
and 1989, respectively.
Currently, he is Manager of EMC and Power
Quality at STRI AB, Ludvika, Sweden, and Guest
Professor with EMC-on-Site, Lule University of
Technology, Skellefte, Sweden. Before joining
STRI in 2003, he was a Postdoctor with Eindhoven
University of Technology, a Lecturer with the
University of Manchester Institute of Science and
Technology (UMIST), Manchester, U.K., and Professor of electric power
systems at Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden. His
research interests cover a wide range of subjects in power systems, with an
emphasis on power quality, reliability, and related issues. He has written many
basic papers on voltage-dip analysis and a textbook on power quality.

Irene Yu-Hua Gu (M94SM03) received the Ph.D.

degree in electrical engineering from Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands,
in 1992.
Currently, she is a Professor of Signal Processing
in the Department of Signals and Systems at
Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg,
Sweden. She was a Research Fellow with Philips
Research Institute IPO, Eindhoven, and Staffordshire University, Stafford, U.K., and a Lecturer at
The University of Birmingham, Birmingham, U.K.,
between 19921996. Since 1996, she has been with Chalmers University of
Technology. Her current research interests include time-frequency signal processing with applications to power disturbance data analysis, image processing,
video communications, and object recognition.
Dr. Gu was an Associate Editor with IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS,
MAN, AND CYBERNETICS, Parts A and B, during 20002005; was Chair of the
Signal Processing Chapter in the IEEE Swedish Section during 20022004; and
has been with the editorial board for the EURASIP Journal of Applied Signal
Processing since 2005.