IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 20, NO.

2, APRIL 2005 1143

Steinmetz Circuit Influence on the Electric System

Harmonic Response
Luis Sainz, Joaquín Pedra, Member, IEEE, and Manuel Caro

Abstract—Single-phase loads such as traction systems cause Steinmetz circuit is connected to a system in order to balance
voltage asymmetries and damage power quality. Reactors suitably a single-phase load. The results of the study are validated with
connected to single-phase loads are used to reduce this unbalance. experimental measurements.
The set formed by reactors and single-phase loads is more com-
monly known as Steinmetz circuit. In nonsinusoidal conditions,
the resonance between the reactors of the Steinmetz circuit and II. CHARACTERIZATION OF THREE-PHASE UNBALANCE
the system reactances can worsen the harmonic disturbances. This
paper studies the harmonic response of an electric power system Unbalanced three-phase phasors ( , , ) can be
in the presence of a Steinmetz circuit. The study allows the parallel decomposed into three symmetrical phasors named zero-,
resonance to be predicted. The obtained results are validated with positive-, and negative-sequence components ( , , ) by
experimental measurements. applying the Fortescue transformation
Index Terms—Frequency scan, harmonic analysis, power
quality. (1)

I. INTRODUCTION Under sinusoidal conditions, three-phase unbalance is nor-

mally defined with the unbalance factor, which relates the neg-
A POWER electric system is expected to operate under bal-
anced three-phase conditions; however, in high voltage
networks single-phase loads such as traction systems can be
ative-sequence component magnitude,
sequence component magnitude, , i.e.,
, to the positive-
.
connected. These loads consume unbalanced line currents and Under balanced conditions, and ;
cause unequal voltage drops in distribution lines, thus resulting thus, usually, the higher the unbalance, the higher the unbal-
in unbalanced load bus voltages [1]. These unbalanced oper- ance factor.
ating conditions can produce undesirable effects in networks Under nonsinusoidal conditions, the Fortescue transforma-
[2], [3]. For this reason, circuits consisting of single-phase tion, (1), can be extended to each unbalanced three-phase har-
loads, reactors and capacitors suitably connected have been de- monic phasor ( , , with ) and the
veloped in order to reduce unbalance in electric power systems. corresponding zero-, positive-, and negative-sequence harmonic
These circuits, which are more commonly known as Steinmetz components can be obtained ( , and ). However,
circuits, allow the network to be loaded with symmetrical cur- three-phase unbalance in nonsinusoidal conditions is character-
rents. There are different studies on the Steinmetz circuit design ized with the unbalance factor of the fundamental waveform,
under sinusoidal balanced or unbalanced conditions. Some of i.e., , [9].
these studies propose analytical expressions and optimization
techniques for its characterization [4]. III. STEINMETZ CIRCUIT
Moreover, there is a growing presence of harmonic voltages Fig. 1 presents the Steinmetz circuit in a network with the
in power electric networks due to the increase of nonlinear de- supply system and the three-phase load.
vices [5], [6]. Therefore, the symmetrizing system design must Single-phase loads cause asymmetry of currents and volt-
consider load performance and behavior under nonsinusoidal ages in the network. These loads are modeled in Fig. 1 with the
conditions [7]–[10]. In these nonsinusoidal conditions, the res- impedance , where is the studied
onance between the reactors of the Steinmetz circuit and the harmonic and is the reactance at the fundamental frequency
system reactances can worsen the harmonic disturbances. of the supply voltage.
This paper studies the influence of the Steinmetz circuit on In the Steinmetz circuit, these single-phase loads are delta-
the system resonant behavior by means of its impedance matrix. connected to a pure inductance and a
The study allows the parallel resonance to be predicted if the capacitor to load the network with
symmetrical currents. The procedure to design the Steinmetz
Manuscript received November 18, 2003; revised April 26, 2004. This work circuit, i.e., the determination of the inductance and the ca-
was supported by grant DPI2001-2192. Paper no. TPWRD-00574-2003. pacitor from the single-phase load impedance, is presented
L. Sainz and J. Pedra are with the Department of Electrical Engi-
neering, ETSEIB-UPC, 08028 Barcelona, Spain (e-mail: sainz@ee.upc.es; in the Appendix, and the expressions of the symmetrizing ele-
pedra@ee.upc.es). ments are
M. Caro is with IDOM Ingeniería y Arquitectura, C. Barcas, 2, 46002 Va-
lencia, Spain (e-mail: manuel.caro@idom.es). (2)
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2004.834339

0885-8977/$20.00 © 2005 IEEE

1144 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 20, NO. 2, APRIL 2005

Fig. 2. Harmonic behavior of the supply system and the Steinmetz circuit.

Fig. 1. Studied system.

where the above expression has been obtained with the voltage
node method considering point in Fig. 2 as reference bus.
where is the fundamental power factor of the Finally, to characterize the harmonic response of the system,
single-phase load and . the matrix is reduced to three driving impedances. This is
From (2), the circuit under discussion (with reactors and ca- done by considering that the currents injected by the three-phase
pacitors) turns out to be feasible only when the nonlinear load are a set of positive-sequence ( and
fundamental power factor of the loads satisfies the condition where ) since
.
In general, the values of the symmetrizing elements should (4)
also vary in order to compensate the load variation as the
single-phase load characteristics usually fluctuate. Unfortu- or if they are a set of negative-sequence ( and
nately, the typical inductances and capacitors have fixed values. where ) since
However, the introduction of thyristor-controlled reactive ele-
(5)
ments, thanks to the development of power electronics in the
last few years and the use of step variable capacitor banks, where are the phases corresponding to the sequence
allows these reactive elements to be varied [10]. (e.g., with , ). The
consideration about the injected current sequence is correct
IV. STUDY OF THE SYSTEM HARMONIC RESPONSE because the supply voltages are balanced and the Steinmetz
circuit consumes symmetrical currents.
There can exist two sources of harmonic disturbances in the
From (4) and (5), the magnitudes of the three driving imped-
system of Fig. 1: a harmonic-polluted power supply system or a
ances are
three-phase nonlinear load injecting harmonic currents into the
system.
Therefore, the harmonic response of the system depends on
the harmonic equivalent impedance “observed” from the supply
system or from the three-phase nonlinear load. In both cases,
the Steinmetz circuit has an asymmetrical resonant behavior and
therefore an asymmetrical effect on existing harmonic voltages
and currents.
Considering the circuit of Fig. 2, the paper studies the be-
havior of the passive set formed by the supply system and the
Steinmetz circuit in the presence of harmonic currents injected
by the three-phase nonlinear load. Such behavior is character- (6)
ized by means of the equivalent harmonic impedance matrix,
, which relates the harmonic three-phase voltages and where
currents at the nonlinear node as follows: and for the positive-sequence harmonics
or for the negative-sequence harmonics
.
As an example, the network of Fig. 1, comprising a supply
system, and , which feeds a
Steinmetz circuit and a three-phase nonlinear load is analyzed.
In the Steinmetz circuit, the single-phase load,
and , is delta-connected to the reactive symmetrizing
elements, inductance and capacitor
(3) . These elements have been calculated with (2)
in order to balance the currents.
SAINZ et al.: STEINMETZ CIRCUIT INFLUENCE ON THE ELECTRIC SYSTEM HARMONIC RESPONSE 1145

In the following sections, (6) is analyzed to study the system

harmonic behavior and locate the above presented parallel reso-
nances. Since (6) is too complicated to be analytically analyzed,
it has been numerically analyzed.

V. NUMERICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF THE SYSTEM

HARMONIC RESPONSE
In the numerical study, the following considerations have
been taken into account in (6)
— The supply system resistance, , is neglected, i.e.,
.
— Considering expression (2), the admittances of the
Steinmetz circuit components can be rewritten as

(7)

In (7), it can be noted that the resistance of the Steinmetz

circuit inductance is also neglected in the numerical study.
Therefore, the magnitude of the three driving impedances,
(6), depends on the harmonic order, , the supply system funda-
mental reactance, , the single-phase load resistance, and
the single-phase load fundamental power factor , i.e.,
, where and .
The magnitude has been calculated using the following
variable ranges
— Harmonics: , 7 and 11.
— Supply system reactance: .
— Single-phase load: and ,
0.95 and 0.9.
As an example of the study calculations, the magnitude of
the fifth harmonic driving impedance versus the supply system
reactance has been plotted in Fig. 4(a), (b), and (c) for four
values of the single-phase load resistance and the power
factor equal to 1, i.e.,
Fig. 3. System driving impedances (continuous line: k = 1; 7; . . . ; broken with and . From Fig. 4(a), (b), and (c), it can be
line: k ).
= 5; 11; . . .
noticed that
— Parallel resonances appear at nearly the same point for
The system harmonic response is shown in Fig. 3(a), (b), and the three phases. For example, the driving impedance
(c). According to (6), this harmonic response has meaning only shows that a parallel res-
for the harmonics (i.e., the points marked in onance appears at the fifth harmonic in a system with
Fig. 3(a), (b), and (c)). The lines between these harmonics are a supply reactance if the single-phase
only the analytical representation of (6) and give a qualitative load of the Steinmetz circuit consumes 50% of the total
idea of the frequency response trend. active power with a fundamental power factor equal to
From Fig. 3(a), (b), and (c), it can be noticed that 1, and .
— The magnitude of the phase driving impedance at
— A parallel resonance close to the seventh harmonic can the resonance point is 4.2 pu, i.e., the voltage harmonic
be observed for the three driving impedances. distortion of the fifth harmonic will be greater than the
— The asymmetrical resonant behavior of the circuit standard limit (5%) if the nonlinear device injects a
leads to an asymmetrical effect on the harmonic fifth harmonic current, , higher than 0.012 pu.
voltages, and the most critical resonance takes place — The phases between which the capacitor is connected,
in phases and between which the capacitor is i.e., and , have similar impedance values, and their
connected. Both phases have the highest harmonic resonance behavior is the most critical because their
driving impedance, and will therefore have the highest impedances are higher than the other phase impedance,
harmonic voltages. .
1146
Fig. 4. Fifth harmonic driving impedance for  = 1.
Apart from the above conclusions, the numerical analysis has
also shown that
— The same conclusions as those obtained for the fifth
harmonic, Fig. 4(a), (b), and (c), have been obtained
for the other harmonics.
— For a fixed fundamental power factor , the single-
phase load resistance, which produces the resonance at
the harmonic when the symmetrizing elements are
connected, has a linear relation with the supply system
reactance. The form of this linear relation is
, where
— For a fixed fundamental power factor , the magni-
tude of the driving impedances at the resonant har-
monic has also a linear relation with the single-phase
load resistance. The form of this relation is
, where and
. used to locate the new resonance frequency.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 20, NO. 2, APRIL 2005
TABLE I
STRAIGHT LINES PARAMETERS
Fig. 5. Numerical characterization of the resonance. (a) Relation between X
and R which provokes the resonance, X = mx R . (b) Driving impedance
=
value at the resonance frequency, jZ j mz R + nz .
Table I shows the parameters of the above-mentioned straight
lines for three different power factors and for the fifth, seventh,
and eleventh harmonics, which have been calculated numeri-
cally. For the straight lines of the impedance magnitude only the
parameters of the most critical phase, i.e., phase , have been
shown. These straight lines are represented in Fig. 5(a) and (b).
The parameters of Table I or the plots of Fig. 5(a) and (b)
allow the parallel resonance at the fifth, seventh, or eleventh har-
monic to be predicted when the Steinmetz circuit is connected
to a system in order to balance a single-phase load. In the case
that the values of the symmetrizing elements must be varied in
order to compensate the single-phase load variations, the par-
allel resonance is shifted, but Table I or Fig. 5(a) and (b) can be
SAINZ et al.: STEINMETZ CIRCUIT INFLUENCE ON THE ELECTRIC SYSTEM HARMONIC RESPONSE 1147

For example, the resonance point values of the impedance TABLE II

magnitude in Fig. 4(a) can be pre- PARAMETERS OF FITTED CURVES (8)
dicted from data of Table I,
and
(point P in Fig. 5(a) and (b)).
The slope is equal to the inverse of ratio,
i.e., , where is the
short circuit power of the PCC bus and is the apparent power
of the single-phase load. Considering the usual range of
ratio values, [1], and the fundamental power factor values, it
can be noted that the values of for which is provoked a
resonance in the fifth, seventh, or eleventh harmonic, Table I,
are usual in electric systems.
From Fig. 5(a) and (b), the following conclusions can be
obtained
— The bigger the single-phase load resistance, , the
higher the value of the equivalent impedance at the
resonance point, , and the higher the value of
the fundamental reactance of the supply system which
produces this resonance, . This conclusion can also
be verified in Fig. 4(a).
— The smaller the single-phase load fundamental power
factor , the higher the value of the equivalent
impedance at the resonance point, , and the
higher the value of the fundamental reactance of the
supply system which produces the resonance, .
The above conclusions can be extended to the impedances of
the other phases.
The parameters of these straight lines ( , and )
are functions of the fundamental power factor only. This depen-
dence has been studied numerically for the slope . The in-
verse of the slope, , has been studied instead of
the slope, , because the function can be adjusted more
easily than the function .
In this way, this function is numerically calculated from the
driving impedance expressions, (6), and is plotted in Fig. 6(a)
Fig. 6. Characterization of the slope px = 1=mx .
for the fifth, seventh, and eleventh harmonics. The power factor
range has been limited to in the study. Consid-
ering two intervals, these curves can be correctly fitted by means First, the value of the slope is calculated from (8) with
of the following expressions the data of Table II

(9)
(8)

where the parameters of these curves have been calculated from
close-fitting of the curves obtained from (6). Their values are
shown in Table II.
The fitted curves and the error between them and the
curves calculated from the driving impedance expressions,
Error , are also
shown in Fig. 6(b). It can be observed that the adjusted curves
allow the slope to be characterized with an acceptable
error. This characterization allows the location of the resonance
for any fundamental power factor when the symmetrizing
elements are connected to balance the consumed single-phase
currents.
As an example, the resonance shown in Fig. 3(a) can be pre-
dicted with the results of the previous numerical study.
where , and . The slope value
is also shown in Table I and is labeled in Fig. 6(a) as point Q.
Once this slope is calculated, the supply system reactance
which provokes a resonance in the seventh harmonic when the
Steinmetz circuit is connected can be determined as
(point Q in Fig. 5(a)).
From the data of Table I, the impedance of phase at the
resonance point can also be determined,
(point Q in Fig. 5(b)). Although the
resistances of the supply system and the Steinmetz circuit
inductance have been neglected in the numerical study, the slight
differences in the example results are only due to neglecting
the supply system resistance. This is analyzed in the next
section.
1148 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 20, NO. 2, APRIL 2005

, and . As an example, if and

is considered, the following ratios are obtained:
, and
. If a resistance is added to the Steinmetz circuit in-
ductance, its harmonic admittance, and therefore its influence
on the system harmonic response, will be even smaller.
Thus, the numerical characterization of the system resonance
frequencies presented in the previous section is valid although
the system resistances are not considered.

VII. EXPERIMENTAL MEASUREMENTS OF THE SYSTEM

HARMONIC RESPONSE
As an example, the harmonic response of the network
of Fig. 2 has been measured in the laboratory to validate
the study. Considering the base values and
, this network comprises the supply system,
, which feeds a Steinmetz cir-
cuit, and (according to (2),
). The frequency response measurements
have been made with a 4.5 kVA AC ELGAR Smartwave
Switching Amplifier as the power source, which can generate
arbitrary waveforms, and a YOKOGAWA DL 708 E digital
scope as the measurement device.
The measured harmonic behavior is presented in Fig. 8(a),
(b), and (c). It can be noted that the measurements are in
agreement with the expected harmonic behavior of the system
(Fig. 3(a), (b), and (c)). Comparing both cases, the impedance
Fig. 7. Influence of the supply system resistance on the driving impedances. magnitudes of Fig. 3(a) and (c), and
are bigger than the impedance magnitudes
VI. INFLUENCE OF THE RESISTANCES ON THE SYSTEM of Fig. 8(a) and (c), and .
HARMONIC RESPONSE This is because the single-phase load resistance is bigger
in the first case than in the second case
The resistances of the supply system and the Steinmetz circuit
, and the ratio is smaller in
inductance have not been considered in the study of the previous
the first case than in the second case
section. In general, these resistances could damp the system har-
.
monic response and shift the system resonance frequencies.
The resonance shown in Fig. 8(a) can be predicted with the
In this section, this influence is numerically analyzed from (6)
results of Section V. The value of the slope is calculated
and by considering the abovementioned resistances, i.e.,
from (8) with the data of Table II,
and .
It has been numerically verified that the supply system re-
sistance, , damps the system driving impedances but it does (10)
not modify the resonance frequencies of these impedances. As
an example, the network of Fig. 1, which comprises a supply where , and . The slope value
system ( and , 0.1 and 0.5) feeding is also shown in Table I and is labeled in Fig. 6(a) as point T.
a Steinmetz circuit ( , and Once this slope is calculated, the supply system reactance
), is analyzed. The phase driving impedance is shown which provokes a resonance in the fifth harmonic when the
in Fig. 7. It can be observed that the supply system resistances Steinmetz circuit is connected can be determined as
influence the value of the driving impedance but not the reso- (point T in Fig. 5(a)).
nance frequency. From the data of Table I, the impedance of phase at this
It has also been numerically verified that the resistance of resonance point can also be determined as follows.
the Steinmetz circuit inductance does not modify the obtained (point T in Fig. 5(b)).
system harmonic response. (This has been verified with resis- Although the resistances are neglected in the numerical study,
tance values up to .) In fact, the Steinmetz circuit induc- the results of the resonance frequency are quite in agreement
tance has very little influence on the obtained system harmonic with the experimental measurements. The small differences be-
response. This small influence can be observed in (6) because, tween the supply system reactance of the laboratory network,
for the usual values of the system impedances, the harmonic ad- , and the reactance obtained with the theo-
mittance of the Steinmetz circuit inductance, , is smaller retical expressions, , are due to the fact that
than the harmonic admittance of the other system elements, the experimental resonance frequency is not exactly at the fifth
SAINZ et al.: STEINMETZ CIRCUIT INFLUENCE ON THE ELECTRIC SYSTEM HARMONIC RESPONSE 1149

predicted. These conclusions have been validated with experi-

mental measurements.

APPENDIX
In the Steinmetz circuit, the reactors, capacitors and single-
phase loads, suitably interconnected, allow the network to be
loaded with balanced currents, Fig. 1. Therefore, the procedure
to design the Steinmetz circuit determines the analytical expres-
sion of the unbalance factor and forces this factor to be zero [4].
To obtain the expression of the unbalance factor, the three-
phase harmonic currents are determined from the phase-phase
harmonic voltages (Fig. 1)

(11)
where ,
and .
The symmetrical components of three-phase fundamental
currents , , are then obtained with the Fortescue
transformation, (1), and subsequently the unbalance factor is
determined analytically

(12)

Thereby, the final expression of this factor depends on the

consideration of the balanced or unbalanced voltages at the point
of common coupling, [4]. In this paper, balanced voltages are
considered ( and ) in order
Fig. 8. Measured driving impedances (continuous line: k = 1; 7; . . . ; broken
line: k = 5; 11; . . .). to simplify the study of the circuit design under nonsinusoidal
conditions and the obtained unbalance factor is

harmonic. As for the driving impedance magnitudes, the pres-

ence of the supply system resistances in the laboratory network,
, is the reason for the differences between
the measured and the calculated results, and
, respectively.

VIII. CONCLUSIONS (13)

The influence of the Steinmetz circuit on the system harmonic where is the fundamental power factor of the
response is studied. A shunt resonance exists between the supply single-phase load and .
and Steinmetz impedances. It is more critical in those phases Finally, the symmetrizing reactive elements are obtained by
between which the capacitor is connected. The resonance fre- forcing the fundamental current unbalance factor (13) to be zero
quency value and the impedance value at this frequency have
been characterized numerically, and analytical expressions have
been proposed to calculate them. From these analytical expres-
sions, the parallel resonance if the Steinmetz circuit is con-
nected to a system in order to balance a single-phase load can be (14)
1150
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 20, NO. 2, APRIL 2005
Luis Sainz was born in Barcelona, Spain, in 1965. He
received the B.S. degree in industrial engineering and
the Ph.D. degree in engineering from the Universitat
Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain, in 1990
and 1995, respectively.
Since 1991 he has been a Professor in the Electrical
Engineering Department of the Universitat Politèc-
nica de Catalunya. His main field of research is power
system quality.
Joaquín Pedra (S’85–M’88) was born in Barcelona,
Spain, in 1957. He received the B.S. degree in indus-
trial engineering and the Ph.D. degree in engineering
from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya,
Barcelona, Spain, in 1979 and 1986, respectively.
Since 1985 he has been a Professor in the Electrical
Engineering Department of the Universitat Politèc-
nica de Catalunya. His research interest lies in the
areas of power system quality and electric machines.
Manuel Caro was born in Manzanares, Spain, in
1979. He obtained the B. S. degree in industrial
engineering from the Universitat Politècnica de
Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain, in 2002.
He works for IDOM Ingeniería y Arquitectura. His
main field of research is power system quality.