Harmonic Resonance Assessment and Severity Estimation of Shunt Capacitor Applications in Electric Power Distribution Systems

Abstract

The technological development in the semiconductor field facilitates the increase of nonlinear loads,that may affect the power quality of distribution power system network and harmonic mayoccur.Accordingly, shunt capacitors are widely used for harmonic mitigation, but harmonic resonance may occur between the system and the connected capacitors and may have severe consequences. In this thesis, a procedure to estimate the severity of harmonic resonance is formulated in electrical power distributed system,and a harmonic resonance index is proposed for shunt power capacitor applicationusedto improve power factor. A simple equation to express harmonic resonance severity under different background harmonic voltage levels is formulated. Different case studies are employed to analyze the possibility and severity of harmonic resonance using the proposed formulations with various utility side’s background voltage distortions. The results show that the proposed resonance index formulation can facilitate quick use by industry to estimate the severity of resonance.