ELNG 405

HIGH VOLTAGE ENGINEERING

POWER SYSTEM DISTURBANCE

Mr. Isaac Otchere

Disturbance ???
 interruption disruption, distraction , interference or breakdown of a settled and
peaceful condition.

Power System Disturbance ???

Any power problem manifested in Voltage, current, frequency or phase angle deviation that result in failure /mis-
operation/interruption/breakdown of customer Load(s)

Any disruption, distraction , interference etc of the Power System which prevents it from maintaining Supply
Voltage as close as possible to IDEAL CONDITION (pure sinusoidal, rated magnitude at rated frequency)

Power System Disturbance → Power Quality

Power Quality
Maintaining Supply Voltage as close as possible to IDEAL CONDITION (pure sinusoidal,
rated magnitude at rated frequency)

Fitness of the electrical power supply which under ideal operating conditions, does not
cause any disturbance or loss of performance to electrical equipment

Any power problem manifested in V, I or f deviation that result in failure /misoperation

of customer Load(s)
Additionally, the objective of PQ enhancement could be: the load ( whatever be the
type), seen from the utility side, should appear as BALANCE RESISTIVE LOAD(S)

PQ is UTILITY DRIVEN but CUSTOMERS TAKES PRECEDENCE !!!

Monday, September 26, 2016
Other Power Quality Problems
Driving Force for Power Quality
Sophisticated and Sensitive Equipment Customer Awareness
Harmonics Concern Utility Constrain
DG penetration (Growing interest of Renewable Energy)

UTILITY PCC
. Distributed Generation ( DG)
Ackermann et al “Distributed generation is an electric power source connected directly
to the distribution network or on the customer site of the meter”

CIGRE is the International Council on Large Electricity Systems

“All generation units with a maximum capacity of 50MW to 100MW, that are usually
connected to the distribution network and that are neither centrally planned nor
dispatched”

IEEE is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

“the generation of electricity by facilities that are sufficiently smaller than central generating
plants so as to allow interconnection at nearly any point in a power system”

International Energy Agency (IEA)-

“units producing power on a customer’s site or within local distribution utilities, and
supplying power directly to the local distribution network”
Reference:
Khadkikar V et al “Impact of Distributed Generation Penetration
on Grid Current Harmonics Considering Nonlinear Loads,” in Proc.
International Symposium on Power Electronics for Distributed
Generation Systems (PEDG'12), pp. 1-8, 25-28 June 2012.
 Main sources of poor power quality related to utilities
Point of supply Generation
• Mainly due to maintenance activity, planning, scheduling, event leading to forced outages.

Transmission System
• High wind condition resulting in supply interruptions and/or random voltage variations

• Lightning resulting in a spike or transient overvoltage.

• Insulator flashover

• Voltage dips due to faults

• Interruptions due to planned outages by utility

• Transient overvoltage generated by capacitor and/or Inductor switching

 Customer Loads

Some end-user related problems –

• harmonics generated by non-linear loads such power electronic devices and equipment, ASDs,
UPS, fax machines, laser printers, computers
• poor power factor due to highly inductive loads. Eg-induction motors & air- conditioning units
• Flickers
• transients mostly generated inside a facility due to device switching, arcing
• improper grounding
• frequency variations when secondary and backup power sources (such as diesel generator)
PQ therefore must necessarily be tackled from 3 fronts:
Utility
• must design, maintain and operate the power system while minimizing PQ problems
End User
• must employ proper wiring, system grounding and state of art electronic devices

Manufacturer
• must design electronic devices that keep electrical environmental disturbances to a minimum
and that are immune to anomalies of the power supply
 CLASSIFICATION OF POWER SYSTEM DISTURBANCES
Under Voltage is a reduction in the rms voltage
Generalized Definition… Voltage dips and Undervoltages
Voltage sags (dips) are momentary reduction in the rms values of voltages to less than 90% of the norminal voltage.

Major causes of Under Voltage:

 Excessive network loading
 Loss of power generation
 incorrectly set transformer taps and
 voltage regulator malfunctions
 Loads with a poor power factor or a general lack
of reactive power support on a network
Major causes of voltage dips:
 Fault on the system, that is sufficiently remote electrically that a voltage
interruption does not occur.
 Starting of large industrial loads and occasionally, the supply of large
inductive loads.
 Other network-related fault causes are weather–related (such as snow,
ice, wind, salt spray, dust) causing insulator flashover, collisions due to voltage sag
birds, and excavations damaging cables.
 Classification of Voltage Sag
Instantaneous Sag: Instantaneous sag is said to occur when the r.m.s voltage decreases to between 0.1 and 0.9 per unit for time
duration of 0.008333s to 0.5s .

Momentary Sag: Momentary sag is said to occur when the r.m.s voltage decreases to between 0.1 and 0.9 per unit for time duration
of 0.5s to 3s.

Temporary Sag: Temporary sag is said to occur when the r.m.s voltage decreases to between 0.1 and 0.9 per unit for time duration
of 3 to 60 seconds.
Voltage surges and Overvoltages
A swell sometimes referred as Surge is defined as an increase to between 1.1 and 1.8 p.u. in rms voltage at the network
fundamental frequency with duration from 0.5 cycles to one minute
Note:
• the duration of a voltage swell is measured from when one phase rises above 110%
of the reference voltage until all three phases have again fallen below 108% - 109%
of the reference voltage.

• If the event persists longer than 1 min it will be re-classified as an overvoltage

Main causes of voltage swells:
 energizing of capacitor banks
 shutdown of large loads,
 unbalanced faults (one or more phase-to-phase voltages will increase)
 transients and
 power frequency surges
IEC 60050 defines voltage sag as any
“sudden reduction of the voltage at a point in the electrical
system, followed by voltage recovery after a short period of
time, from half a cycle to a few seconds”.
Note: Voltage sags are characterised by their duration and depth.
Duration is the length of time for which the voltage remains below a
threshold.
IEEE Std 1159 defines a voltage sag as a variation in the rms
voltage of duration greater than ½ a cycle and less than 1 minute
with a retained voltage of between 10% and 90% of nominal.

IEEE 1159-1995 defines Sag (dip) as a decrease to between

0.1 and 0.9 pu in rms voltage or current at the power frequency
for durations of 0.5 cycles to 1 minute.

Note:
 Any disturbance that persists for less than ½ cycle is
Considered as transient phenomena.

 Any voltage variations or disturbances of duration greater

than 1 minute with retained voltages of less than 90 % of
nominal may be considered as either sustained
undervoltages or interruptions.

Voltage Swell is defined by IEEE 1159 as the increase in

the RMS voltage level to 110% - 180% of nominal, at the
power frequency for durations of ½ cycle to 1 min.
The consequences of overvoltages
 Dielectric breakdown – This can significant permanent damage to equipment (electronic components, etc).
 Degradation of equipment – This could be due to repetitive but not destructive overvoltages.
 Long interruptions – caused by the destruction of equipment.
 Disturbances in control systems and low current communication circuits
 Electrodynamic and thermal stress.
 Some equipment that is particularly sensitive to overvoltages may have to be shut down by protective devices.
 Poor electric power quality has many harmful effects on power system devices
and end users
 sometimes effects are not known until failure occurs

 Even if failures do not occur, poor power quality and harmonics increases losses and decrease
the lifetime of power system components and end-use devices
Harmonics add to the rms and peak value of the waveform
 equipment could receive a damagingly high peak voltage/current and may be susceptible to
failure
 power system components may operate in saturation regions: additional harmonics

Adverse effects from heating, noise and reduced life on: capacitors, surge
suppressors, rotating machines, cables and transformers, fuses etc.
Utility companies are more concerned that the distribution transformer may
need to be de-rated to avoid premature failure due to overheating harmonics.

Failure of power system components and customer loads may occur due to
unpredicted disturbances such voltage and/or current magnifications due to
parallel resonance.

Malfunction of controllers and protective devices such as fuses and relays

Points to note
Harmonic number 0 represents the constant or DC component of the waveform.
The DC component is the net difference between the positive and negative halves of
one complete waveform cycle.
The DC component of a waveform has undesirable effects, particularly on
transformers due to the core saturation
Saturation of the core is caused by operating the core at magnetic field levels above
the knee of the magnetization curve.
Transformers are designed to operate below the knee portion of the curve. When DC
voltages or currents are applied to the transformer winding, large DC magnetic fields
are set up in the transformer core.
The sum of the AC and the DC magnetic fields can shift the transformer operation into
regions past the knee of the saturation curve.
The transformer losses are substantially increased, causing excessive temperature
rise. Core vibration becomes more pronounced as a result of operation in the
saturation region.
 Sources of Harmonics
Commercial facilities
• office complexes, department stores, hospitals, and Internet data centers are dominated with
high-efficiency fluorescent lighting with electronic ballasts, adjustable-speed drives for the
heating, ventilation, and air conditioning loads, elevator drives, and sensitive electronic
equipment supplied by single-phase switch-mode power supplies.
• Commercial loads are characterized by a large number of small harmonic-producing loads.
• Depending on the load types, these small harmonic currents may add in phase or cancel each
other.
• The voltage distortion levels depend on both the circuit impedances and the overall harmonic
current distortion. In commercial facilities, the circuit impedance is dominated by the service
entrance transformers and conductor impedances.

Single-phase power supplies

• Electronic power converter loads the most important class of nonlinear loads in the power
system.
• Equipment: adjustable-speed motor drives (ASD), electronic power supplies, dc motor drives,
battery chargers, electronic ballasts, inverter applications, ….
Con’t…
• Two common types of single-phase power supplies:
1. Transformer based
2. DC/DC converter based (Switch-mode power supplies, SMPS)
• SMPS: Personal computers, printers, copiers, and most other single-phase electronic
equipment
Fluorescent Lighting
• Lighting typically accounts for 40 to 60 percent of a commercial building load.

• Fluorescent lights are discharge lamps they require a ballast to provide a high initial voltage to
initiate the discharge for the electric current to flow between two electrodes in the fluorescent tube.
• Two common types of ballasts:
1. Magnetic (fundamental freq)
2. Electronic (high freq 25 to 40 kHz)
Adjustable-Speed Drives (ASD)
• Common applications: elevators, pumps, fan control in HVAC systems
• ASD electronic power converter: converts fixed ac voltage & freq into variable voltage & freq.
Industrial Loads
• Industrial facilities often utilize capacitor banks to improve the power factor to avoid penalty
charges
• The application of PFC capacitors can potentially magnify harmonic currents from the
nonlinear loads, giving rise to resonance conditions within the facility.
• Nonlinear industrial loads can generally be grouped into three categories: three-phase power
converters, arcing devices, and saturable devices.

Arcing Devices
• Arcing devices includes arc furnaces, arc welders, and discharge-type lighting (fluorescent,
sodium vapor, mercury vapor) with magnetic ballasts

• The voltage-current characteristics of electric arcs are nonlinear. Following arc ignition, the
voltage decreases as the arc current increases, limited only by the impedance of the power
system. Currents in excess of 60,000 A are common.

• The harmonic content of an arc furnace load and other arcing devices is similar to that of the
magnetic ballast
 Saturable Devices
• Transformers and other electro- magnetic devices with a steel core, including motors
• Harmonics are generated due to the nonlinear magnetizing characteristics of the steel
• Power transformers are designed to normally operate just below the knee point of the
magnetizing saturation characteristic.
 Effect of Harmonics
Utility Equipment
• Increase current in neutral line of conductor ( eg. Triplen Harmonics).

• Harmonic currents produced by nonlinear loads injected back into the supply systems
• Heating effect in Transformer windings and also transformer capacity will reduce to as much as 50% due to increase in hysteresis & eddy
current loss.
• Affects wide range of power system equipment most notably capacitors, transformers & motors, causing additional losses, overheating, and
overloading.
• Poor power factor of loads.

• False or spurious operations and trips, damaging or blowing of components in fuses and circuit breakers .

Consumer
• Decrease performance of consumer equipment (power supplies, motor drives etc) thyristor firing errors.
Communication lines
• Interferences
Revenue Billing
• Affects the accuracy of kWhr & energy demand readings due to errors in magnetic disk.