PCIM Europe 2013, 14 – 16 May 2013, Nuremberg

A Method to Measure the Network Harmonic Impedance

Sandro Günter , Friedrich W. Fuchs , Hans-Jürgen Hinrichs

 
Institute for Power Electronics and Electrical Institute for Electrical Power Engineering
Drives University of Applied Sciences Kiel
Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel Grenzstr. 5, 24149 Kiel, Germany
Kaiserstr. 2, 24143 Kiel, Germany Email: hans-juergen.hinrichs@fh-kiel.de
Email: sg@tf.uni-kiel.de, fwf@tf.uni-kiel.de

Abstract
In this paper the principle problem of grid impedance measurement at harmonic frequencies will be
described. For there is a high pollution of harmonic voltages in the low voltage supply grid, it is difficult
to measure the grid impedance at these frequencies. A method to measure the harmonic impedance
using injection of harmonic currents with different phase angles will be described. Simulation results will
be presented that show the suitability of this method. Measurement results will also be shown to verify
the simulation.

1 Introduction
Due to the steady growing number of distributed power generation in the low voltage grid, like photo-
voltaic panels and small wind turbines, there are several problems coming up. The risk of violating the
allowed voltage band grows with increasing distributed power generation because there is usually no
voltage control in MV/LV-transformers [1]. It can be required that the voltage source inverters of the
distributed generation can feed in not only active power but reactive power as well to compensate the
voltage drop over the cables to the transformer. For this case the grid impedance at the grid frequency
should be known.
But there is another problem coming up if many frequency converters are connected to the grid. The
harmonic voltages can be high and they could exceed the allowed values. For example in the German
grid rules [2] there is a maximum of 6% of nominal voltage for the 5th harmonic voltage and 5% for
the 7th harmonic voltage. Harmonic currents could be injected by inverters connected to the grid to
compensate these voltages. This is called Active Filtering and was published among others in [3, 4, 5].
It would be best if every inverter in the low voltage grid that feeds in harmonic currents could measure
these harmonic voltages and the grid impedance. The inverters could then feed in the current that
is required to compensate these voltages, but additional measurement equipment is expensive and
the harmonic current injection can easily be controlled if the harmonic grid impedance is known. The
impedance changes with time of cause, but if the impedance would be known for several specific times
like several times of day for the days of one week, the inverters can inject harmonic currents based on
a schedule to compensate harmonic voltages. For that case the grid impedance has to be measured.
On the other hand the grid behavior should be well-known to ascertain how harmonics influence the grid
and for standardization of grid standards.
In chapter 2 the measurment system and the general method of measuring the grid impedance is de-
scribed. The general problem of preexisting harmonic voltages and their influence on the measurement
is proposed in chapter 3. In chapter 4 a special method of measuring the impedance at harmonic
freuencies with preexisting harmonic voltages is discribed. Results of simulation and measurement will
be shown in chapter 5 and 6 respectively. In chapter 7 the simulation and measurement results will be
compared. The measured grid impedance, especially at harmonic frequencies, can be used to reduce
the harmonic grid voltages. This is described in chapter 8. A conclusion will follow at the end.

2 System Description
To measure the grid impedance there are several methods published among others in [6, 7, 8]. One of
these methods is the injection of a variable frequency sinusoidal monofrequent measurement current by
a voltage source converter.

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By injecting a current of a specific frequency there is a voltage drop at the grid impedance at this
frequency. This method is illustrated in figure 1. The measurement system gets power from the 50 Hz-
component of the grid, so it is not an inverter. If the measurement is taken at many frequencies in a
broad range of frequency, it is possible to calculate the frequency dependant grid impedancy in this
specific range.
V grid in figure 1 is asumed to be 0 for every frequency except 50 Hz. So for this frequencies the voltage
at the point of grid connection is equal to the voltagedrop over the grid impedance caused by the injected
current. For a known or measured current and a measured voltage the grid impedance can be calculated
very easily by:
V gridimpedance (f )
Z grid (f ) = (1)
I measure (f )
This method can be used to measure the grid impedances at interharmonic frequencies and subhar-
monic frequencies as well.

Vgridimpedance

Imeasure Lfilter Zgrid

Vgrid

Measurement Current
Grid
Generator

Figure 1: Measuring method

3 Problem
As a precondition the grid voltage should be 0 for all frequencies but 50 Hz. The main problem is that
this is not 0, especially for harmonic frequencies, because of the many nonlinear loads like for example
switch-mode power supplies and diode rectifiers. Figure 2 shows an example of the harmonic spectrum
of a measurement at a point in the german low voltage grid. These voltages would cause errors in the
measurement, so it has to be calculated and subtracted from the measured voltage.

Figure 2: Harmonic spectrum of a Measurement in the low-voltage grid (nominal voltage is 230 V)

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 PCIM Europe 2013, 14 – 16 May 2013, Nuremberg

4 Special Measurement Method

To handle this problem the measurement can be done by injecting measuring current with a harmonic
frequency but phase angles different to the grid voltage, so that the grid impedance can be calculated
anyway. Figure 3 illustrates this method.
Figure 4 shows the voltages for a current injection at a harmonic frequency for two opposite phase
angles, which means that the phase angles have a difference of 180°. The expected voltages V expect
are those without a pollution current existing in the grid before the injection. The measured voltages
V measure are those which are measured with a pollution current. The voltage V harmonic at a harmonic
frequency is the voltage drop generated by the pollution current.
So for multiple measurements with opposite phase angles the voltage drop caused by the pollution
current is
n
1 
V harmonic = (V + V ν2measure ), (2)
2n ν=1 ν1measure

with n the number of opposite pairs of injected currents. To calculate the impedance at a harmonic
frequency V harmonic just has to be subtracted from the measured voltage.

V measure − V harmonic
Z harmonic = (3)
I measure

The method can be applied for more opposite pairs of measuring currents to gain accuracy. This is of
course applicable for any harmonic frequency.
It would also be possible to measure the harmonic voltages without current injection before and then
subtract the harmonic voltage from the measured voltages when injecting a measuring current. This
woud be a differential measurement. The grid conditions are not constant though, so the harmonic
voltage could have changed between the measurement with and without current injection. The proposed
method should have a better behavior in terms of varying harmonic voltages in the grid.

Re

Re

V2expect Vharmonic

Im Iharmonic V2measure
Im V1expect

Imeasure
V1measure
φmeasure Vharmonic

Figure 3: Measurement current injection with Figure 4: Voltages during measurement current in-
different phase angles at a har- jection with two opposite phase angles at
monic frequency a harmonic frequency

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 PCIM Europe 2013, 14 – 16 May 2013, Nuremberg

5 Simulation of measuring harmonic voltages using the proposed method

To show that the proposed method can be used to calculate the harmonic voltage a simulation model
has been build up. The model consists of a three-phase 3-Level converter controlled by a hysteresis
current controller and a Thevenin equivalent circuit of the grid shown in figure 5. The filter inductance is
0.5 mH and the grid impedance is assumed as 0.2 Ω and 0.05 mH.
Results of the simulation will be shown for different harmonic frequencies. In figure 6 the three line
voltages depending on the time at the grid connection point are plotted as an example for a current of
60 A, a frequency of 350 Hz and a phase angle of 270 °.
In the simulation a harmonic voltage is generated by additional voltage sources in a Thevenin equivalent
circuit represented as V harmonic in figure 5. Attention should be paid to the symmetrical components
[9]. The 5th harmonic of the grid voltage rotates counterwise the 50 Hz-component, so it is in negative
sequence as can be seen from figure 7.
In the simulation currents with different phase angles are generated by the converter to generate a
voltagedrop at the grid impedance, so that the preexisting harmonic voltage can be calculated. Figure 8
shows the results for the setted and the calculated 7th voltage harmonic.
The simulated harmonic voltages are almost the same as the setted harmonic voltages of the model.
Little differences depend on the error of the Fourier analysis.

CDC+
Vgridimpedance

Lfilter Zgrid
Vharmonic
CDC-

Vgrid

Figure 5: One phase of the simulation model

Figure 6: Voltages for injection of a 7th harmonic current with 270 °phase angle

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 PCIM Europe 2013, 14 – 16 May 2013, Nuremberg

Figure 7: Simulated and setted voltage of 5th Figure 8: Simulated and setted voltage of 7th
harmonic in simulation harmonic in simulation

6 Measurement of harmonic voltages using the proposed method

To verify the simulation measurement results also of the 5th and 7th harmonic voltage are presented.
The measurement currents with different frequencies were generated by a special measurement current
generator developed at the institute [10]. Figure 9 and 10 show the results for the 5th and 7th respectively.
The differences between calculated and directly measured harmonic voltage in figure 9 depend on the
accuracy of the voltage probes and on the error of the Fourier analysis. For the 7th harmonic voltage in
figure 10 the difference is slightly bigger because the voltages are even lower than for the 5th harmonic
voltage. The voltage probes have to measure the 50 Hz component, too, so the uncertainty of measure-
ment for such low voltages is relatively high. The error is mainly in phase, not in magnitude, which is an
error in zero crossing detection caused by fluctuating currents generated by the used converter.
With the presented method of measuring the harmonic grid impedance and by measuring the inter-
harmonic frequencies the frequency dependent impedance can be determined in a broad range of

5 2
L1 calculated
L1 measured
4 L2 calculated 1.5
L2 measured
L3 calculated
3 L3 measured 1

2 0.5
Im{Vharmonic} / V
Im{Vharmonic} / V

1 0

0 −0.5

−1 −1
L1 calculated
−1.5 L1 measured
−2
L2 calculated
L2 measured
−3 −2
L3 calculated
L3 measured
−2.5
−4 −2 −1.5 −1 −0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5
−5 −4 −3 −2 −1 0 1 2 3 4 5
Re{Vharmonic} / V Re{Vharmonic} / V

Figure 9: Calculated and measured voltage of Figure 10: Calculated and measured voltage of
5th harmonic 7th harmonic

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 PCIM Europe 2013, 14 – 16 May 2013, Nuremberg

frequency. For frequencies between 80 Hz and 10 kHz an example of the frequency dependent grid
impedance at a specific connection point and time is illustrated in figure 11. The raw data and an inter-
polated curve is presented for the magnitude and phase of the impedance. Depending on the special
converter that was used to inject the measurement current into the grid the currents and the voltages
also have harmonics which causes noise in the signals that has an impact on the calculated impedance.
Figure 12 shows the interpolated impedance for the three lines and average impedance. The impedances
of the three phases are not equal because the impedance depends on the connected loads.

Figure 11: Measured grid impedance of one line

Figure 12: Measured grid impedance of all three lines and avarage

7 Comparison of simulation and measurement

In the simulation the calculated harmonic voltages nearly match the setteded ones. In the measure-
ment there is a slightly greater difference between the calculated and the directly measured harmonic
voltages, especially for low harmonic voltages depending on the accuracy of the measurement equip-
ment. But the magnitude of the harmonic voltage is nearly equal to the directly measured ones. So the

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 PCIM Europe 2013, 14 – 16 May 2013, Nuremberg

proposed method is very good for determining the harmonic voltage and due to this for calculating the
harmonic grid impedance.

8 Harmonic Voltage Elimination

As mentioned in section 1 inverters connected to the grid, like solar inverters, can reduce or even
eliminate the harmonic voltages by injecting harmonic currents in addition to the fundamental current.
To be able to do this, the inverters have to know the grid impedance for these frequencies. They could
either measure the impedance with expensive equipment or they know the approximate impedance,
which was calculated before by the proposed method. By reducing the harmonic voltage the risk of
exceeding the maximum allowed harmonic voltage level will be reduced.

9 Conclusion
A method to measure the harmonic grid impedance has been presented in this paper. It has been
shown that the method can be used to calculate the grid impedance at harmonic frequencies even
at the presence of high harmonic voltages by injecting a phase shifted monofrequent current at this
frequency.

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