2019 SAUPEC/RobMech/PRASA Conference
Bloemfontein, South Africa, January 28-30, 2019
The Impacts of Harmonics Reduction on THD
Analysis in HVDC Transmission System using
Three-phase Multi-Pulse and higher Level
Converters.
Gbadega Peter . A
Dept. of Electrical, Electronic & Computer Engineering
University of KwaZulu-Natal
PO Box 4041, Durban, South Africa.
perosman4real1987@yahoo.com
Abstract— eliminating the glitches confronted by High
Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) transmission systems such as
converting station and harmonic cost can therefore make it
more realistic. Generally, total harmonic distortion can
simply be lessen up to the allowable limits, just by increasing
the pulses number in a multi-pulse converter. The mitigation
methods of various converter levels during the operation of
high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission system are
compared and its basically the essence of the paper. This study
further investigates the impact of harmonic reduction on total
harmonic distortion (THD) analysis of various converter
levels. Hence, the paper presents the higher-level converters
and different multi-pulse AC-DC (6-pulse, 12-pulse, 24-pulse
and 48-pulses) converters in the HVDC transmission system
to eliminate harmonics in the DC link with reference to IEEE
519 standards. More so, the increasing effect of the pulses
number with respect to the AC-DC converters performance is
analyzed. The only performance indicator used for the
comparison of various converters is the THD values.
Index Terms — HVDC, higher-level converter, harmonics,
THD analysis, and IEEE standards.
I. INTRODUCTION
In HVDC converter stations, the non-linear power
electronic devices are majorly the semiconductor devices.
A significant distortion in transmission networks is caused
by the harmonic currents injected by some of these devices
which are usually too small. Nonetheless, serious harmonic
distortion levels are caused as a result of the cumulative
effect of these harmonic current been fed in the network
when operating in large numbers. [1]. The following are
caused as a result of the harmonics that come from the
HVDC network, loss increment, reduce equipment life,
thermal stress of equipment, and can also result to system
collapse. The presence of harmonics lead to poor power
factor, increased loss and reactive power components from
AC and on the equipment present in the system and low
system efficiency. The efficiency of power transmission is
reduced by the harmonics in an HVDC system. Further,
they also damage the system components insulation and
lower the power utilization efficiency. More so, if the
system has high harmonic contents plant mal-function can
occur [2]. Ideally, in power system, at a specified voltage
level of uniform magnitude with sinusoidal wave-shape
and constant frequency, electrical energy is supplied.
However, due to the presence of current and voltage
harmonics of manifold orders, which are instigated by the
978-1-7281-0369-3/19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE
444
A.K Saha
Dept. of Electrical, Electronic & Computer Engineering
University of KwaZulu-Natal
PO Box 4041, Durban, South Africa.
saha@ukzn.ac.za
semiconductor non-linear loads, none of these stated
conditions is fully fulfilled in practice. More so, of recent,
substantial consideration has been majorly focussed on the
line side harmonics mainly because they waste energy or
better still leads to energy loss, cause problem of reliability
in equipment, overload power network infrastructure, and
affect quality of the grid. Hence, as a result of the following
defects, harmonics mitigations have been seen as a
noteworthy essential focal point of research concerns in
power systems [3]-[4]. Multi-pulse methods is mainly
connecting multiple converters in order to rescind the
generated harmonics by one converter by the harmonics
produced by other converters. As a result, specified
harmonic associated to the number of converters are
eradicated from the power source. Two major
achievements are observed as a result of the adoption of
multi-pulse systems, such as, the output voltage ripple
reduction which occurs as a result of the reduction of input
line current harmonics. Hence, AC input current harmonics
reduction is essential as regards the influence the converter
has on the power system. Many new concept and
experimental work have oozed out from the field of multi-
pulse converters through a large number of publications. S.
Kim et al [5] Proposed in his work that to lessen harmonics
generated by a three phase diode rectifier and further
enhance power factor, a thorough analysis and design of a
passive and novel inter-connection of a star/delta
transformer approach was strictly adopted. Paice et al [6],
based on a hexagonal auto transformer arrangement, he
proposed maximizing the efficiency of 12-pulse AC-DC
converter. Choi et al [7], presented in his paper, a new auto-
transformer arrangements with reduced KVA capacities,
this arrangements reduced the harmonic current and further
improved AC power quality of high current DC power
supplies. A method was presented in [8], which presents
high pulse converters like 6, 12, and 18 in the HVDC
transmission system to reduce harmonics in the DC link. It
further explained how harmonics distortion in HVDC
network were mitigated by increasing the number of pulses
of the converters from 6 to 12, and then subsequently
increased to 18. Additionally the study in [9],[10] The
maintenance of the quality of utility power supply by
mitigating the harmonics through the effective solution of
shunt active power filter was investigated. At the point of
common coupling, harmonics are mitigated by injecting
equal but opposite harmonics components by the shunt
active filter, which acts as a current source in the proposed
scheme. MATLAB-Simulink toolbox is utilized to carry
out the simulation of shunt active filter based on
instantaneous reactive power theory. In order to mitigate
the harmonic contents in the HVDC transmission, this
paper utilized high-level converters.
This paper is structured in the following ways, section
II describes the sources, effects and solutions to harmonics
ill-effects in HVDC systems. Section III shows the
simulations, results and analyses. Section IV concludes the
study.
II. SOURCES OF HARMONICS IN HVDC SYSTEMS.
The reasons for power supply pollution have been made
known in various literatures as harmonics, which as well
reduces the power factor and consequently, increase
electrical losses. The harmonic current is produced by the
non-linear loads, and subsequently inject it into power
network at the point of common coupling. This harmonic
current can interact negatively with other power system
equipment such as transformer etc. Common examples of
non-linear loads whose harmonic ill effects needed to be
addressed are Power converters, which find applications in
HVDC transmission, uninterrupted power supply (Rectifier
bridge network), Electrical drives such as variable speed
and frequency drives etc.[8], [11]
A. Effects of Harmonics on HVDC Systems
Harmonics in the current and voltage waveforms
present in electrical sources cause many ill effects such as
system equipment insulator damage, system element
heating, extra electrical power loss, reduction in power
generation. The harmonics effects also include, reduction
in transmission and utilization efficiency, resonance
effects, over-loading and over-heating of transformers,
malfunctioning of protective relay i.e. Interference with
communication equipment, circuit breakers nuisance
tripping and over-stressing of power factor correction
capacitors [12].
B. Solutions to the ill-effects nature of harmonic pollution
It is expedient to incorporate some form of filtering
devices to the power system, in order for the quality limits
proposed by standards to protect the sensitive loads on
HVDC system to be maintained. Note that, for system
quality improvement, harmonic filter technology is very
essential in general. The harmonic filters are globally
known to the most essential and worthwhile technique of
reducing or eliminating harmonics. However, due to the
drawbacks they pose on the electrical networks such as the
introduction of resonance if not properly configured and
installed, some of the filters are bulky and heavy due to
passive elements, performance depends on load and can
only be tuned to effectively cancel a single harmonic,
therefore, it is expedient to adopt the Multi-level filtering
technique. The various available classification of harmonic
mitigation techniques are passive filtering technique, multi-
pulse or level rectifier filtering technique and active
harmonic filtering technique. This research work adopts the
use of higher-levels and multi-pulse converters to mitigate
harmonic contents in the HVDC transmission [8],[13]. It is
worth noting that the duration over which a particular phase
is required to provide unidirectional current to the load is
instigated by the harmonics actual level generated by an
AC-DC converter. Consequently, the switching between
445
phases within a cycle becomes greater, likewise, the
harmonic distortion in both the AC line current and the DC
terminal voltage becomes lessen as the Pulse number of the
converter becomes higher. [14].
C. Harmonic limits recommended by IEEE std. 519
Recently, great deal of attention is given to power
system harmonics, which is a noteworthy focal point of
research. This is mainly as a result of the non-linear loads
which consist of an ever increasing segment of the total
load for a typical industrial plant. Therefore, more stringent
recommendations and strict requirement on power quality
in IEEE std. 519, IEC 61000-3-2, and IEC 61000-3-12 have
been established as a result of the rise in the non-linear
loads proportion and also stricter limits enforced by
utilities. Electrical equipment and facilities in power
network have been compelled by the utilities based on the
international standards concerning electrical power quality
the specified values of harmonic contents to be produced
and further specify distortion limits to the supply voltage.
Note that, where the cause is an HVDC terminal that will
attenuate by the time, it is tapped for a user, High-voltage
systems can have up to 2.0% THD [15].
Table 1: IEEE Std 519-1992 Harmonic Voltage Limits [15].
Bus Voltage at PCC Individual Total Voltage
voltage Distortion THD
distortion (%) (%)
69 kV and below 3.0 5.0
69.001 kV through 1.5 2.5
161 kV
161.001 kV and 1.0 1.5
above
III. SIMULATIONS, RESULTS AND ANALYSES
In this research work, various multi-pulse and levels
were simulated with the aim of mitigating the harmonic
pollutions posed by the converters in an HVDC network.
The THD analysis of some of these technologies were also
investigated. The MATLAB/Simulink was used to model
6-pulse, 12-pulse, 24-pulse and 48-pulse thyristorized
controlled rectifiers with a gate pulse generator used to
trigger the gates of the thyristors, subsequently, the
thyristors were replaced by diodes (uncontrolled rectifier).
THD in the input current and the terminal voltage were
calculated.
Fig. 1. Three-phase controlled 6-pulse AC-DC converter HVDC system
 A Software Based system design and implementation
where SimPowerSystems tools of Matlab was used as the
simulation tool are described in this section. The Simulink
model suggested comprises of various parts. Fig. 1 to 4,
show the overall system, which illustrates the various
HVDC transmission with higher number of pulses. In fig.
1 to 4, 1500 kW Power is transmitted from a 200 kV, 50Hz
network to a thyristorised converter load in the above
HVDC system design. Fig 1 shows the general
configuration of 6-pulse AC-DC converter. The
thyristorized rectifier is fed by a three-phase transformer.
The 6-pulse AC-DC converter can eliminate two dominant
harmonics such as and . Fig 2 shows the
configuration of 12-pulse AC-DC converter. The rectifier
has two units identical of 6-pulse thyristorized rectifiers fed
by a three-phase transformer. The 12-pulse AC-DC
converter can eliminate four dominant harmonics such as
, , and . Fig 3 shows the general
configuration of 24-pulse AC-DC converter. The rectifier
Fig. 2. Three-phase controlled 12-pulse AC-DC converter HVDC has four identical units of 6-pulse thyristorized rectifiers
system fed by a three-phase transformer. The 24-pulse AC-DC can
eliminate six dominant harmonics such as , , ,
, and . Fig 4 shows the general configuration
of 48-pulse AC-DC converter. The rectifier has eight
identical units of 6-pulse thyristorized rectifier fed by a
three-phase transformer. For 48-pulse AC-DC converter,
the required phase displacement between two adjacent
secondary winding voltages is 10°.

Fig. 3. Three-phase controlled 24-pulse AC-DC converter HVDC

system

Fig. 5. Voltage and Current waveforms in a five-level converter

Fig. 4. Three-phase controlled 48-pulse AC-DC converter HVDC
system

446
 Fig. 9. Voltage and Current waveforms in a thirteen-level converter

Fig. 6. Voltage and Current waveforms in a seven-level converter

Fig. 10. Voltage and Current waveforms in a fifteen-level converter

Fig. 7. Voltage and Current waveforms in a nine-level converter

Fig. 11. Voltage and Current waveforms in a seventeen-level converter

Fig. 12. Voltage and Current waveforms in a nineteen-level converter

Fig. 8. Voltage and Current waveforms in a eleven-level converter

447
Fig. 13. Voltage and Current waveforms in a twentyone-level converter
Fig. 17. Voltage harmonic order of controlled 24-pulse converter

Fig. 14. Voltage and Current waveforms in a twentythree-level converter

Fig. 18. THD analysis of Controlled 48-pulse converter

Fig. 5 to 14 show the waveforms of the voltage and

current of various higher-level converters. Hence, it is seen
that as the converter level is increasing the voltage and
current waveforms are getting smoother for the same power
operating point. More so, we can observe that a good
performance is achieved in terms of distortion at higher
converter levels. In terms of Voltage harmonics depicted in
fig. 15 to 18, there is a remarkable improvement in the THD
analysis as we increase the number of pulses of the
converters. The results of the THD analysis are tabulated in
table 1 and table 2.
Table 1: Results of Voltage THD analysis of various
HVDC Converter-levels and pulses.
Fig. 15. THD analysis of controlled 6-pulse converter
Number of THD Voltage %
Converter Controlled Uncontrolled
Pulses/Levels
6- pulse (2-level) 12.3932 15.2246
12-pulse (2-level) 4.7621 9.2463
24-pulse (3-level) 0.6531 2.7721
48-pulse (4-level) 0.4243 1.0128
5-level 0.2243 0.7784
7-level 0.0780 0.5273
9-level 0.0617 0.3329
11-level 0.0492 0.1186
13-level 0.0442 0.0994
15-level 0.0359 0.0728
17-level 0.0245 0.0552
19-level 0.0227 0.0439
21-level 0.0204 0.0311
Fig. 16. Harmonic spectrum of controlled 12-pulse converter 23-level 0.0110 0.0297

448
Table 2: Results of Current THD analysis of various [2] F. J. Chivite-Zabalza and A. J. Forsyth, "A passive 36-pulse
HVDC Converter-levels and pulses. AC–DC converter with inherent load balancing using
combined harmonic voltage and current injection," IEEE
Number of THD Current % transactions on power electronics, vol. 22, pp. 1027-1035,
Converter Controlled Uncontrolled 2007.
Pulses/Levels [3] A. J. Rezek, J. Abreu, V. Silva, J. M. Vicente, J. A. Cortez,
6- pulse (2-level) 6.2425 6.5257 W. d. O. Assis, et al., "Power factor improvement of line-
12-pulse (2-level) 2.3411 2.7450 commutated graetz converters by increasing their number
24-pulse (3-level) 0.3622 0.5432 of pulses," in V Brazilian Conference of Power Electronics,
48-pulse (4-level) 0.2710 0.3025 pp. 551-556.
5-level 0.1235 0.2136 [4] A. J. Rezek, J. P. de Abreu, V. F. da Silva, J. Vicente, J.
7-level 0.0299 0.0533 Cortez, O. Vicentini, et al., "Power factor improvement of
9-level 0.0234 0.0473 line-commutated graetz converters by increasing their
11-level 0.0157 0.0311 number of pulses: modeling and experimental results," in
13-level 0.0114 0.0227 Harmonics and Quality of Power, 2002. 10th International
15-level 0.0083 0.0102 Conference on, 2002, pp. 60-65.
17-level 0.0073 0.0098 [5] S. Kim, P. Enjeti, P. Packebush, and I. Pitel, "A new
approach to improve power factor and reduce harmonics in
19-level 0.0069 0.0086
a three phase diode rectifier type utility interface," in
21-level 0.0061 0.0074 Industry Applications Society Annual Meeting, 1993.,
23-level 0.0052 0.0069 Conference Record of the 1993 IEEE, 1993, pp. 993-1000.
[6] D. A. Paice, "Auto-connected hexagon transformer for a 12-
pulse converter," ed: Google Patents, 1992.
Table 1 and 2 show the voltage and current THD
[7] P. Enjeti, S. Choi, and I. J. Pitel, "Autotransformer
analysis of various HVDC Converter-levels and pulses. configurations to enhance utility power quality of high
From the table, the voltage and current THD keep reducing power AC/DC rectifier systems," in Particle Accelerator
as the number of pulse/levels are increasing in both Conference, 1995., Proceedings of the 1995, 1995, pp.
controlled (thyristors) rectifier and uncontrolled (diodes) 1985-1987.
rectifier. The voltage and current THD of the twenty-three [8] R. Kiranmayi, "Reduction of Harmonics in HVDC
level are 0.0110% and 0.0052% respectively, compared to Transmission System using High Pulse Converter.,"
0.22% and 0.12% of the five-level converter. It can be International Journal of Innovative Research in Computer
concluded that by increasing the number of pulses/levels, and Communication Engineering vol. vol.1, p. 112, 2013.
[9] K. K. Srivastava, S. Shakil, and A. V. Pandey, "Harmonics
offers significant advantage in terms of power quality. & its mitigation technique by passive shunt filter,"
International Journal of Soft Computing and Engineering
(IJSCE) ISSN, pp. 2231-2307, 2013.
[10] A. Shah and N. Vaghela, "Shunt active power filter for
IV. CONCLUSION power quality improvement in distribution systems," Int J
This paper immensely discussed the importance of Eng Dev Res, vol. 1, pp. 23-27, 2014.
[11] S. P. Diwan, H. Inamdar, and A. Vaidya, "Simulation
using higher-level and multi-pulse converters for the Studies of Shunt Passive Harmonic Filters: Six Pulse
harmonic distortions reduction in the system to enhance the Rectifier Load–Power Factor Improvement and Harmonic
power quality, efficiency, and the various ill-effects as a Control," ACEEE International Journal on Electrical and
result of the harmonics are drastically lessened. The study Power Engineering, vol. 2, pp. 1-6, 2011.
further investigated the analysis of harmonic effects in a [12] V. Wagner, J. C. Balda, D. Griffith, A. Mceachern, T.
basic HVDC transmission network. It is very essential to Barnes, D. Hartmann, et al., "Effects of harmonics on
adopt effective or efficient technique to lessen the presence equipment," IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, vol. 8,
of harmonics to the barest minimum level, since the pp. 672-680, 1993.
[13] S. Efe, "Harmonics in Power Systems and Analysis of
presence of harmonic contents influence every element in
Harmonics," Graduate Thesis, Inonu University, Malatya,
transmission. It is worthy of note that, for a HVDC line of Turkey, 2006.
voltage capacity161.001 kV and above, the converter [14] V. Anuradha, S. Anitha, D. Apoorva, N. Priyanka, and B.
output voltage THD % must be below 1.5%, according to Somashekar, "Harmonic Analysis in HVDC System,"
IEEE 519 standards. Hence, higher-level and multi-pulse International Journal of Emerging Technology and
converters are adopted, so as to achieve the voltage THD Advanced Engineering, vol. 4, pp. 132-138, 2014.
% below the specified value. Conclusively, it was obvious [15] T. M. Blooming and D. J. Carnovale, "Application of IEEE
from the obtained results that by increasing pulses/levels of Std 519-1992 harmonic limits," in Pulp and Paper Industry
Technical Conference, 2006. Conference Record of Annual,
converters, it lessens the HVDC transmission harmonic
2006, pp. 1-9.
contents drastically within the harmonic limit, which is in
accordance with the IEEE std. 519, which is made possible
by comparing the simulation results obtained for the
various converters pulses/levels.

REFERENCE
[1] N. A. a. P. Pushpakarthick, "24-Pulse rectifier realization by
3-phase to four 3-phase transformation using conventional
transformers," IEEE Conference, vS.S.N. College of
Engineering, Anna University (Chennai), Tamilnadu., p. 7,
2010.

449