Observations on Harmonics Summation in Transmission Systems: Alternative Aggregation Estimation

Abstract

The aggregation of harmonic components from different sources is one of the critical and challenging assessments in electric power systems. Harmonic summation analysis and estimation is not a simple task since there will be variations because of the grid complexity, nonlinear sources, and unpredictable behaviour of harmonic currents that affect the results. An evaluation of harmonic summation using alternative methods to calculate the harmonic composition at any network point is suggested. A typical arrangement of transmission grids was modelled and used to simulate the results. This paper aims to highlight the results obtained by these alternative methods of harmonic summation and show the role of this type of analysis in transmission systems planning. The contributions are (a) illustrate how alternative methods of harmonic summation can be applied to investigate harmonic aggregation from different sources; (b) provide a case study that also discusses the harmonic aggregation effects with different locations of sources and component phase angle shifting; (c) show comparison and correlation between those alternative summations calculations with a standardized and firmly adopted method (proposed by IEC 61000-3-6). The software MATLAB/Simulink performs simulation and analysis. Finally, the work discusses the findings.