Electrical Power and Energy Systems 26 (2004) 17

www.elsevier.com/locate/ijepes

Harmonic source identification and current separation

in distribution systems
Yong Zhaoa,b, Jianhua Lia, Daozhi Xiaa,*
a
Department of Electrical Engineering Xian Jiaotong University, 28 West Xianning Road, Xian, Shaanxi 710049, China
b
Fujian Electric Power Dispatch and Telecommunication Center, 264 Wusi Road, Fuzhou, Fujian, 350003, China

Abstract
To effectively diminish harmonic distortions, the locations of harmonic sources have to be identified and their currents have to be separated
from that absorbed by conventional linear loads connected to the same CCP. In this paper, based on the intrinsic difference between linear
and nonlinear loads in their V I characteristics and by utilizing a new simplified harmonic source model, a new principle for harmonic
source identification and harmonic current separation is proposed. By using this method, not only the existence of harmonic source can be
determined, but also the contributions of the harmonic source and the linear loads to harmonic voltage distortion can be distinguished. The
detailed procedure based on least squares approximation is given. The effectiveness of the approach is illustrated by test results on a
composite load.
q 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Distribution system; Harmonic source identification; Harmonic current separation; Least squares approximation

1. Introduction discussed in Ref. [8]. However, it would be unfair to

Harmonic distortion has experienced a continuous
increase in distribution systems owing to the growing use
of nonlinear loads. Many studies have shown that harmonics
may cause serious effects on power systems, communi-
cation systems, and various apparatus [1 3].
Harmonic voltages at each point on a distribution network
are not only determined by the harmonic currents produced
by harmonic sources (nonlinear loads), but also related to all
linear loads (harmonic current sinks) as well as the structure
and parameters of the network. To effectively evaluate and
diminish the harmonic distortion in power systems, the
locations of harmonic sources have to be identified and the
responsibility of the distortion caused by related individual
customers has to be separated.
As to harmonic source identification, most commonly
the negative harmonic power is considered as an
essential evidence of existing harmonic source [4 7].
Several approaches aiming at evaluating the contribution
of an individual customer can also be found in the
literatures. Schemes based on power factor measurement
to penalize the customers harmonic currents are
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 86-29-266-8966; fax: 86-29-323-7910.
E-mail address: dzxia@mail.xjtu.edu.cn (D. Xia).
0142-0615/$ - see front matter q 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0142-0615(03)00065-6
use economical penalization if we could not distinguish
whether the measured harmonic current is from nonlinear
load or from linear load.
In fact, the intrinsic difference between linear and
nonlinear loads lies in their V I characteristics. Harmonic
currents of a linear load are in linear proportion to its supply
harmonic voltages of the same order, whereas the harmonic
currents of a nonlinear load are complex nonlinear functions
of its supply fundamental and harmonic voltage components
of all orders. To successfully identify and isolate harmonic
source in an individual customer or several customers
connected at same point in the network, the V I character-
istics should be involved and measurement of voltages and
currents under several different supply conditions should be
carried out.
As the existing approaches based on measurements of
voltage and current spectrum or harmonic power at a
certain instant cannot reflect the V I characteristics, they
may not provide reliable information about the existence
and contribution of harmonic sources, which has been
substantiated by theoretical analysis or experimental
researches [9,10].
In this paper, to approximate the nonlinear character-
istics and to facilitate the work in harmonic source
identification and harmonic current separation, a new
2 Y. Zhao et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 26 (2004) 17

simplified harmonic source model is proposed. Then based by the following nonlinear equation
on the difference between linear and nonlinear loads in
iN t f vt 3
their V I characteristics, and by utilizing the harmonic
source model, a new principle for harmonic source and can also be represented in terms of phasors as
identification and harmonic current separation is pre- " #
INhr V1 ; V2r ; V2i ; ; Vnr ; Vni
sented. By using the method, not only the existence of INh ;
harmonic source can be determined, but also the INhi V1 ; V2r ; V2i ; ; Vnr ; Vni 4
contributions of the harmonic sources and the linear
loads can be separated. Detailed procedure of harmonic h 2; 3; ; n
source identification and harmonic current separation Note that in Eq. (4), the initial time (reference time) of the
based on least squares approximation is presented. Finally, voltage waveform has been properly selected such that the
test results on a composite load containing linear and phase angle u1 becomes 0 and V1i 0; V1r V1 in Eq. (2)
nonlinear loads are given to illustrate the effectiveness of for simplicity.
the approach. The V I characteristics of the linear part (denote by
subscript L) of the composite load can be represented by its
equivalent harmonic admittance YLh GLh jBLh ; and the
2. New principle for harmonic source identification total harmonic currents absorbed by the linear part can be
and current separation described as
" # " #" #
ILhr GLh 2BLh Vhr
Consider a composite load to be studied in a ILh ;
distribution system, which may represent an individual ILhi BLh GLh Vhi 5
consumer or a group of customers supplied by a common
feeder in the system. To identify whether it contains any h 2; 3; ; n
harmonic source and to separate the harmonic currents
From Eqs. (4) and (5), the whole harmonic currents
generated by the harmonic sources from that absorbed by
absorbed by the composite load can be expressed as
conventional linear loads in the measured total harmonic " # " # " #
currents of the composite load, the following assumptions Ihr ILhr INhr V1 ;V2r ;V2i ;;Vnr ;Vni
Ih 2 ;
are made. Ihi ILhi INhi V1 ;V2r ;V2i ;;Vnr ;Vni 6
(a) The supply voltage and the load currents are both h 2;3;;n
periodical waveforms with period T; so that they can
be expressed by Fourier series as As the V I characteristics of harmonic source are nonlinear,
Eq. (6) can neither be directly used for harmonic source
X
1 p identification nor for harmonic current separation. To
vt 2Vh sin2pht=T uh 1 facilitate the work in practice, simplified methods should
h1
be involved. The common practice in harmonic studies is to
X
1 p represent nonlinear loads by means of current harmonic
it 2Ih sin2pht=T fh sources or equivalent Norton models [11,12]. However,
h1 these models are not of enough precision and new simplified
model is needed.
The fundamental frequency and harmonic com-
From the engineering point of view, the variations of
ponents can further be presented by corresponding
Vhr and Vhi ; ordinarily fall into ^ 3% bound of the rated
phasors
bus voltage, while the change of V1 is usually less
Vhr jVhi Vh /uh than ^ 5%. Within such a range of supply voltages,
; h 1; 2; 3; ; n 2 the following simplified linear relation is used in
Ihr jIhi Ih /fh this paper to approximate the harmonic source charac-
teristics, Eq. (4)
" #
(b) During the period of identification, the composite ah0 ah1 V1 ah2r V2r ah2i V2i ahnr Vnr ahni Vni
load is stationary, i.e. both its composition and INh ;
bh0 bh1 V1 bh2r V3r bh2i V2i bhnr Vnr bhni Vni
circuit parameters of all individual loads keep
unchanged. h2;3;;n
7
Under the above assumptions, the relationship between
the total harmonic currents of the harmonic sources The precision and superiority of this simplified model
(denoted by subscript N) in the composite load and the will be illustrated in Section 4 by test results on several
supply voltage, i.e. the V I characteristics, can be described kinds of typical harmonic sources.
 Y. Zhao et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 26 (2004) 17 3

The total harmonic current (Eq. (6)) then becomes The total harmonic current of the composite load becomes
2 0 32 3
" #" # ahhr a0hhi Vhr
GLh 2BLh Vhr Ih ILh 2 INh I 0Lh 2 I 0Nh 4 54 5
Ih 0 0
bhhr bhhi Vhi
BLh GLh Vhi 2 3
Xn
" # a a V a V a V
ah0 ah1 V1 ah2r V2r ah2i V2i ahnr Vnr ahni Vni 6 h0 h1 1 hkr kr hki ki 7
2 ; 6 7
6 k2 7
bh0 bh1 V1 bh2i V2r bh2i V2i bhnr Vnr bhni Vni 6 7
6 kh 7
6 7
26 7;
h2;3;;n 6 Xn 7
6 7
6 bh0 bh1 V1 b V b V 7
8 6 hkr kr hki ki 7
4 k2
5
kh
It can be seen from the above equations that the harmonic
currents of the harmonic sources (nonlinear loads) and the h 2; 3; ; n 9
linear loads differ from each other intrinsically in their By neglecting I00Nh in the harmonic current of nonlinear load
VI characteristics. The harmonic current component and adding it to the harmonic current of linear load, I0Nh can
drawn by the linear loads is uniquely determined by the then be deemed as harmonic current of the nonlinear load
harmonic voltage component with same order in the while I0Lh can be taken as harmonic current of the linear
supply voltage. On the other hand, the harmonic current load. I0Nh 0 means the composite load contains no
component of the nonlinear loads contains not only a term harmonic sources, while I0Nh 0 signify that harmonic
caused by the same order harmonic voltage but also a sources may exist in this composite load. As the neglected
constant term and the terms caused by fundamental and term I00Nh is not dominant, it is obvious that this simplifica-
harmonic voltages of all other orders. This property will tion does not make significant error on the total harmonic
be used for identifying the existence of harmonic sources current of nonlinear load. However, it makes the possibility
in composite load. for the harmonic source identification and current
As the test results shown in Section 4 demonstrate that separation.
the summation of the constant term and the component
related to fundamental frequency voltage in the harmonic
current of nonlinear loads is dominant whereas other 3. Identification procedure
components are negligible, further approximation for
Eq. (7) can be made as follows. In order to identify the existence of harmonic sources in a
Let composite load, the parameters in Eq. (9) should be
2 3 determined primarily, i.e.
X
n
6 ah0 ah1 V1 ahkr Vkr ahki Vki 7 Chr ah0 ah1 ah2r ah2i a0hhr a0hhi ahnr ahni 
6 7
6 k2 7
6 kh 7 Chi bh0 bh1 bh2r bh2i b0hhr b0hhi bhnr bhni 
6 7
I0Nh 6 7
6 Xn 7 For this purpose, measurement of different supply
6 7
6 bh0 bh1 V1 bhkr Vkr bhki Vki 7
4 5 voltages and corresponding harmonic currents of the
k2
kh composite load should be repeatedly performed several
times in some short period while keeping the composite
load stationary. The change of supply voltage can for
" #" # example be obtained by switching in or out some
ahhr ahhi Vhr
I 00Nh shunt capacitors, disconnecting a parallel transformer or
bhhr bhhi Vhi changing the tap position of transformers with OLTC.
Then, the least squares approach can be used to
" #" # estimate the parameters by the measured voltages and
a0hhr a0hhi Vhr currents. The identification procedure will be explained
I 0Lh ILh 2 I 00Nh
b0hhr b0hhi Vhi as follows.

(1) Perform the test for m m $ 2n times to get

" # " # " # measured fundamental frequency and harmonic
a0hhr a0hhi GLh 2BLh ahhr ahhi
2 ; voltage and current phasors Vhk /uk k
h ; Ih /fh
k

b0hhr b0hhi BLh GhL bhhr bhhi (k 1; 2; ;m; h 1; 2;; n).

(2) For k 1;2; ;n; transfer the phasors corresponding
h 2; 3; ; n to zero fundamental voltage phase angle uk 1 0
4 Y. Zhao et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 26 (2004) 17

and change them into orthogonal components, i.e. " #

Ihr
Ih I 0Lh 2 I 0Nh
V1rk V1k V1ik 0 Ihi
" #" # " #
k
Vhr Vhk cosuhk 2hu1k Vhik Vhk sinuhk 2hu1k a0hhr a0hhi Vhr ah0 ah1 V1 12
2 ;
b0hhr b0hhi Vhi bh0 bh1 V1
k
Ihr Ihk cosfhk 2hu1k Ihik Ihk sinfhk 2hu1k ;
h 2; 3; ; n
h 2;3;;n
In this case, part equations in the previous procedure should
be changed as follows
(3) Let
Chr ah0 ah1 a0hhr a0hhi 
k
V1k k
V2ik k
Vhik Vnik  ;
k T
V 1 V2r Vhr Vnr
Chi bh0 bh1 b0hhr b0hhi 
k 1;2;;m
Vk 1 k
Vhr Vhik 
T

X V1 V2 Vm T Similarly, I0Nh and I0Lh can still be taken as the harmonic

1 2 m T
current caused by the nonlinear load and the linear load,
Whr Ihr Ihr Ihr  Whi Ihi1 Ihi2 Ihim T respectively.
Pm k k 2 Pm k
Minimize k1 Ihr 2Chr V and k1 Ihi 2Chi
V ; and determine the parameters Chr and Chi by
k 2
4. Experimental validation
least squares approach as [13]:

Chr XT X21 XT Whr 10 4.1. Model accuracy

Chi XT X21 XT Whi To demonstrate the validity of the proposed harmonic

source models, simulations are performed on the following
three kind of typical nonlinear loads: a three-phase six-pulse
(4) By using Eq. (9), calculate I0Lh ; I0Nh with the rectifier, a single-phase capacitor-filtered rectifier and an ac
obtained Chr and Chi ; then the existence of arc furnace under stationary operating condition.
harmonic source is identified and the harmonic Diagrams of the three-phase six-pulse rectifier and
current is separated. the single-phase capacitor-filtered rectifier are shown in
Figs. 1 and 2 [14,15], respectively, the V I
It can be seen that in the course of model construction, characteristic of the arc furnace is simplified as shown
harmonic source identification and harmonic current in Fig. 3 [16].
separation, m times changing of supply system operating The harmonic currents used in the simulation test are
condition and measuring of harmonic voltage and currents precisely calculated from their mathematical model. As
are needed. More accurate the model, more manipulations to the supply voltage, V1k is assumed to be
are necessary. k
uniformly distributed between 0.95 and 1.05, Vhr and
To compromise the needed times of the switching k
Vhi k 1; 2; ; m are uniformly distributed between
operations and the accuracy of the results, the proposed 2 0.03 and 0.03 with base voltage 10 kV and base power
model for the nonlinear load (Eq. (7)) and the composite 1 MV A.
load (Eq. (9)) can be further simplified by only considering
the dominant terms in Eq. (7), i.e.
" #
INhr
INh
INhi
" # " #" #
ah0 ah1 V1 ahhr ahhi Vhr 11
;
bh0 bh1 V1 bhhr bhhi Vhi

h 2; 3; ; n
" #
0
ah0 ah1 V1
INh
bh0 bh1 V1 Fig. 1. Diagram of three-phase six-pulse rectifier.
 Y. Zhao et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 26 (2004) 17 5

the standard deviations. Note that I1 and I_h in Table 2

Fig. 2. Diagram of single-phase capacitor-filtered rectifier.
are the current values caused by rated pure sinusoidal
supply voltage.
Error comparisons on the single-phase capacitor-filtered
rectifier and the arc furnace load are listed in Table 3 and 4,
respectively.
It can be seen from the above test results that the
accuracy of the proposed model is different for different
nonlinear loads, while for a certain load, the accuracy will
decrease as the harmonic order increase. However, the
proposed model is always more accurate than other two
models.
It can also be seen from Table 1 that the component
a50 a51 V1 and b50 b51 V1 are around 20:0074
0:3939 0:3865 and 0:0263 0:0623 0:0886 while the
component a55 V5r and b55 V5i will not exceed 0:2676
0:03 0:008 and 0:9675 0:003 0:029; respectively.
The result shows that the fifth harmonic current caused by
the summation of constant term and the fundamental
voltage is about 10 times of that caused by harmonic
voltage with same order, so that the formal is dominant in
the harmonic current for the three-phase six-pulse rectifier.
The same situation exists for other harmonic orders and
other nonlinear loads.

Fig. 3. Approximate V I characteristics of arc furnace. 4.2. Effectiveness of harmonic source identification
and current separation

Three different models including the harmonic current
source (constant current) model, the Norton model and
the proposed simplified model are simulated and
estimated by the least squares approach for comparison.
For the three-phase six-pulse rectifier with fundamen-
tal current I1 1:7621; the parameters in the simplified
model for fifth and seventh harmonic currents are listed
in Table 1.
To compare the accuracy of the three different
models, the mean and standard deviations of the errors
on Ihr ; Ihi and Ih between estimated value and the
simulated actual value are calculated for each model. The
error comparison of the three models on the three-phase
six-pulse rectifier is shown in Table 2, where mhr ; mhi
and mha denote the mean, and shr ; shi and sha represent
To show the effectiveness of the proposed harmonic
source identification method, simulations are performed on
a composite load containing linear load (30%) and
nonlinear loads with three-phase six-pulse rectifier (30%),
single-phase capacitor-filtered rectifier (20%) and ac arc
furnace load (20%).
For simplicity, only the errors of third order harmonic
current of the linear and nonlinear loads are listed in
Table 5, where IN3 denotes the third order harmonic
current corresponding to rated pure sinusoidal supply
voltage; mN3r ; mN3i ; mN3a and mL3r ; mL3i ; mL3a are error
means of IN3r ; IN3i ; IN3 and IL3r ; IL3i ; IL3 between the
simulated actual value and the estimated value;
sN3r ; sN3i ; sN3a and sL3r ; sL3i ; sL3a are standard
deviations.

Table 1
Part coefficients in simplified model (Eq. (7)) of the three-phase six-pulse rectifier

h ah0 ah1 ah5r ah5i ah7r ah7i ah11r ah11i

5 20.0074 0.3939 0.2676 0.3017 20.1363 20.1410 0.0884 20.0010

7 20.0010 20.1158 0.2109 0.1917 0.0494 20.5233 0.2659 20.0576
bh0 bh1 bh5r bh5i bh7r bh7i bh11r bh11i

5 0.0263 0.0623 20.9675 0.0029 20.1636 0.1915 20.3278 20.0115

7 20.0041 0.1650 0.2430 20.1411 0.4135 20.3068 0.2798 0.0814
6 Y. Zhao et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 26 (2004) 17

Table 2 Table 5
Error comparison on the three-phase six-pulse rectifier Test results on a composite load

Harmonic order Error indices Constant Norton Proposed Error indices (%) Load model Error indices Load model
(%) current model model
Eq. (9) Eq. (12) Eq. (9) Eq. (12)
Fifth I_h =I1 mhr =Ih 0.00 0.16 0.01
0:2192 j0:0510 mN3r =IN3 20.67 20.84 mL3r =IL3 20.67 20.84
mhi =Ih 0.00 20.49 20.08 mN3i =IN3 21.08 21.16 mL3i =IL3 21.08 21.16
mha =Ih 0.12 0.12 0.00 mN3a =IN3 0.41 0.54 mL3a =IL3 0.40 0.27
shr =Ih 2.63 2.29 0.16 sN3r =IN3 3.45 5.94 sL3r =IL3 3.43 4.19
shi =Ih 4.69 3.15 0.55 sN3i =IN3 11.65 13.84 sL3i =IL3 11.52 11.53
sha =Ih 2.36 2.30 0.08 sN3a =IN3 2.93 5.65 sL3a =IL3 2.92 3.64

Seventh I_h =I1 mhr =Ih 0.00 1.61 0.11

20:0669 j0:0908
mhi =Ih 0.00 1.32 0.11 5. Conclusions
mha =Ih 0.91 0.49 0.03
shr =Ih 8.50 5.60 1.00 In this paper, from an engineering point of view, firstly a
shi =Ih 9.01 5.51 0.99 new linear model is presented for representing harmonic
sha =Ih 5.87 3.24 0.37
sources. On the basis of the intrinsic difference between
linear and nonlinear loads in their V I characteristics, and
by using the proposed harmonic source model, a new
Table 3 concise principle for identifying harmonic sources and
Error comparison on the single-phase capacitor-filtered rectifier separating harmonic source currents from that of linear
loads is proposed. The detailed modeling and identification
Harmonic Error indices Constant Norton Proposed
procedure is also developed based on the least squares
order (%) current model model
approximation approach. Test results on several kinds of
3 shr =Ih 6.68 5.71 1.27 typical harmonic sources reveal that the simplified model is
shi =Ih 12.84 8.67 2.45 of sufficient precision, and is superior to other existing
sha =Ih 6.40 6.09 1.50 models. The effectiveness of the harmonic source
5 shr =Ih 25.05 20.17 4.92 identification approach is illustrated using a composite
shi =Ih 26.21 19.81 7.47 nonlinear load.
sha =Ih 23.02 14.85 4.01

Acknowledgements
It can be seen from Table 5 that the current errors of linear
load are less than that of nonlinear loads. This is because the The authors wish to acknowledge the financial support
errors of nonlinear load currents are due to both the model by the National Natural Science Foundation of China for
error and neglecting the components related to harmonic this project, under the Research Program Grant No.
voltages of the same order, whereas only the later 59737140.
components introduce errors to the linear load currents.
Moreover, it can be found that more precise the composite
load model is, less error is introduced. However, even by References
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