International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD)

Volume: 4 | Issue: 4 | April 2020 Available Online: www.ijtsrd.com e-ISSN: 2456 - 6470

Power Quality Management in Smart Grids: Issues and

Improvements
Sumit Gupta1, Dr. Anitha G. S.2
1B.E Scholar, Electrical and Electronics Engineering, RV College of Engineering, Bengaluru, India
2Associate Professor, Electrical and Electronics Engineering, RV College of Engineering, Bengaluru, India

ABSTRACT
Aim of this paper is to gives the overview of the power quality management in smart grids, and describes the different
power quality disturbance like voltage sags, voltage swells, harmonics etc. A satisfactory power quality ensures the
necessary compatibility across all the electrical devices connected to the power grid. Solutions should be provided to
reduce the power quality disturbances in the electrical system to increase the energy transmission and voltage stability.
In this paper we describe the improvement of power quality by using the dynamic voltage restore (DVR) to moderate the
voltage sags and swells in the system and obtain the simulation results by using MATLAB/Simulink.

KEYWORDS: Smart Grid, Power Quality, DVR, MATLAB, Simulink.

INTRODUCTION
To increase energy efficiency, the renewable energy Harmonic distortion is the type of power quality
production increases and also increases the development disturbances with having the multiple integer of frequency
of new Smart Grid technology by the worldwide energy arises by any electrical equipment or non-linear loads.
companies. The efficiency of all industrial production Nonlinear passive loads produced the even harmonics. In the
depends on the power quality because disturbance in the power grid, we also have non-harmonic components, under-
electrical system will affect the performance of electrical harmonics or inter-harmonics produced by the
devices. For the proper functioning of all electrical devices asynchronous engines or the frequency convertors which are
it is necessary to reduce the disturbances. using the sliding phenomenon.
Fault occurs at power grid due to the power quality By connecting the non-linear loads to the power grid system
disturbance like voltage sag and swells that might cause will also leads to the unwanted effects on the power quality.
heavy losses to the industries and consumers. To The PV and wind plants which have the variable generation
minimize the power quality issues in the power system, of power will lead to produce the major distortions at the
the power quality moderator devices are used to reduce point of common coupling.
the disturbances such as voltage imbalance, voltage sag, The power quality effect on harmonic filters and PV plants
voltage swell, harmonics. Most of the power Quality connected across the power grid can be measured by the use
problems occurs due to voltage sag, voltage swell, of Total harmonic distortion indicator. THD are calculated as
harmonics. the percentage of the rated frequency.
Voltage sag happens till the faults in the system cleared
and it vary from few milliseconds to secs. Voltage swell is
not important as compared to the voltage sag because it
very less common in power grids. Voltage sag and swell
may fail or shutdown the working of the electrical
equipment’s. For the customers these effects are very
expensive like shutdown of production and damage of
equipment’s.
In this paper we describe the Dynamic voltage restorer
and discuss the voltage compensation method using Where Uh is harmonic voltage and U1 is the fundamental
simulation results using MATLAB/Simulink. voltage.
For practical cases, the total demand distortion (TDD)
Power Quality
indicator is used. The current harmonics level is expressing
Power quality is very important factor for the power grids based on the maximum circuit current that delivers the
and should not be avoided. A satisfactory power quality actual current distortion on the supply voltages.
ensures the necessary compatibility across all the TDD indicators can be expressed as:
electrical devices connected to the power grid. It is an
important issue for the healthy operation of the new or
existing smart grids.
Power quality includes the two categories of disturbances:
Events and Variations. Therefore, variations are regularly
measured and estimation, events occurs in uncertain way
and proper action should take. Variations are steady
voltage variations, harmonic distortion, voltage flicker and
Voltage unbalance. Events are faster voltage changes,
voltage dip, voltage swells and power interruptions. Where Ih is harmonic current and IL is circuit current.

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 International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) @ www.ijtsrd.com ISSN: 2456-6470
A. Types of Power Quality Disturbances
1. Voltage Sag
The voltage sag is the type of power quality
disturbances that is exist for 0.5 to 10 cycles. It
commonly occurs due to the short circuit faults such
as double line to ground, line to line, line to ground,
three phases to ground faults.
2. Voltage Swell
The voltage swell is short time faults occur in the
electrical system. It is also created at the non-fault
region. In a line to ground fault. It can also be arisen
by energizing the capacitor bank or heavy load.
3. Voltage Interruption
The voltage interruption is the entire lose of the supply
for some period of time, not longer than 1min. The
supply voltage is reduced to 10% to the rated voltage.
The electrical equipment fault, manages the impact of the
Interruption and system failure.
4. Voltage Flickers
Different loads such as rolling mills and welders sudden
changes voltage with cycle of few seconds to several min.
The voltage change during flicker will not exceed 0.9 to
1.1 pu. Flickers is an electromagnetic event while
fluctuation is an undesirable change to the voltage
variation in different load.
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5. Harmonics
Harmonics is the current have frequencies or voltage
which will varies with respect to the fundamental
frequency(50Hz). Harmonics occurs as a result of non-
linear loads such as rectifiers, inverters and different
static energy equipment’s.
6. Voltage imbalance
The three-phase voltage of the conductors are ideally
equal in magnitude and shift time by 1/3 of the cycle or
6.7ms. If the single phase of the households draws the
equal amount of current and distributed across the three-
phases, so the voltage across the low voltage supply is
balanced. In real world this is hard to achieve and the
voltage varies and this voltage imbalance leads to the
overheat the electrical devices in the grid.
7. Transients
The transient is the type of disturbance the occurs in the
strength device. Transients can be divided into two
categories, oscillatory and impulsive. Transient leads to
the shutdown of the capacitor energization organization,
heavy load and oscillatory. The impulsive transient
occurs as a result of lightning strikes.
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 International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) @ www.ijtsrd.com ISSN: 2456-6470
B. Power Quality Issues
1. Emission by new devices
Establishment of the smart grids leads to the growth in
the production at distributed generation and in the
consumption such as high-speed railways, electric
vehicles charging stations etc. From these new types of
consumptions will leads to emit power quality
disturbances, e.g. harmonic emission. Some of the
studies shown that harmonics emission due to smart
grid is limited. Most of the consumers equipment
(lamps, television, computer) leads to emit the low-
level odd harmonics such as 3, 5, 7, 9 etc. But some
modern equipment with distributed generators leads
to emit a broadband spectrum.
2. Interference between devices and powerline-
communication
Smart grids will also depend on the ability to
communicate between grid operator, devices,
distributed generators and customers. There is
different type of communication channels are
achieved. Powerline-communication is used due to the
easy availability, but by using the powerline-
communication leads to the arises of different power
quality disturbances, result in the reduction in the
power quality of the smart grids. Powerline
communication may result in radiated form of
disturbances depending on the frequency chosen and
also leads to the interference in the radio broadcasting
and communication.
3. Immunity of devices
Voltage disturbance (such as voltage sag) leads to the
simultaneous tripping of generators is the subject of
important discussion. Smart grid always tries to
maintain the balance between the consumption and
production, heavy tripping will lead to the severe
consequences. These should be monitored
continuously.
4. Weakening of the transmission grid
With the increased use of the distributed generator
and wind mills will leads to the result in the reduction
on the quantity of generation linked to the
transmission system. The fault severity leads to the
reduction in the power quality of system.
5. Allocation of Emission Limits
With the connection of new consumer to the electrical
system leads to the increase in the amount of emission
will be acceptable for this consumer but may leads to
the disturbance in voltage for other customers.
With the use of the smart grid, the consumption level
will have no limits for the production growth. The
growth in consumption and production leads to the
high harmonic distortion and also the consumption
and production are balance at the electrical system not
at harmonic distortion frequency.
6. Improving Voltage Quality
Important aim of the smart grid is to increase the
efficiency of the electrical system or prevent the whole
system from damage without need for the huge
amount of investment in transformers, cables. Smart
grid leads to the improvement in the voltage quality of
the system reduced in voltage magnitude variations.
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C. Power Quality Improvement using DVR
Dynamic voltage restorer is a power electronics device
which is connected in series with the power grid. The
components Dynamic Voltage Restorer consists of an
Injected coupling transformer, filter, series Voltage
source invertor, an energy storing device and electrical
control system.
Fig-2. Components of DVR.
The basic components of a DVR are shown in Fig. 2.
i. Energy Storage Device
This device is used for storing the energy in the
form of DC voltage. Batteries, superconducting
magnetic energy storage (SMES) and
supercapacitors. Energy storage provides the real
power to the electrical system while using the DVR.
ii. Series VSI
Voltage source inverter is used to convert dc
voltage from the energy storage unit to ac voltage.
VSI of high current and low voltage with step-up
coupling transformer is used for DVR
compensation technique.
iii. Capacitor
Dynamic voltage restorer by using the large DC
capacitor to provide the proper dc voltage to the
voltage source inverter.
iv. Filter
Filter is used in DVR to convert the inverted PWM
into a sinusoidal waveform. Filter is used to
remove the undesirable harmonic content
produced during voltage source inverter actions.
Higher order harmonics content will deform the
compensated output voltage.
v. Bypass Switch
Bypass switch is used to protect the voltage source
inverter from high current in the undesirable
conditions. During a fault, Dynamic voltage
restorer changes to bypass condition. The rating of
the Dynamic voltage restorer inverters is a limiting
part for normal rated load current in the primary
winding and results in the insertion in the
secondary winding of the transformer.
vi. Voltage Injection Transformer
In a three-phase system, three single-phase
transformer or single three-phase transformer
used for the injection of voltage in the power grid.
The main function of the dynamic voltage restorer is to
inject a dynamic controlled voltage VDVR produced by
the voltage source inverter in series to the supply
voltage by using the coupling transformer. The
magnitude of the three phase injected voltages are
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 International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) @ www.ijtsrd.com ISSN: 2456-6470
controlled so that to mitigate any undesirable effects
on power grid due to the non-linear load’s voltage.
The Dynamic voltage restorer works independently of
the type of fault or any undesirable event that takes
place in the electrical system, without disconnecting
the whole system to the grid. Economical design
should be obtained by compensating the negative and
positive waveform of the supply voltage disturbances.
The zero sequence if a disturbance does not pass
through the transformer because of its infinite
impedance.
Dynamic voltage restorer has two modes of operation:
boost mode and standby mode. In the standby mode
(VDVR=0), the coupling transformer’s is shorted to the
converter. In this mode of operation, no switching of
semiconductors occurs because individual voltage
source inverter leg is trigger so as to make the short-
circuit path of the coupling transformer. In this mode
DVR will work most of the time. In boost mode
(VDVR>0), dynamic voltage restorer is introduced in
compensating voltage through the coupling
transformer due to power quality disturbances.
Fig-3. Equivalent circuit of Dynamic Voltage Restorer
Fig-3 shows the equivalent circuit of the Dynamic
Voltage restorer, when there is a voltage sag and
sweep, the DVR introduces a series injected voltage V inj
using the coupling transformer so that the required
load voltage magnitude VL should maintained. The
series injected voltage of the Dynamic Voltage
Restorer can be expressed as:
Vinj = VL + Vs
Where
VL is the desired load voltage
Vs is the voltage during swells/sags
The output load current IL is expressed by,
D. Advantages and Disadvantages of DVR
• Advantages-
1. Dynamic voltage restorer is preferred over
DSTATCOM, UPS because DVR is less expensive
than other devices.
2. UPS requires lots of maintenance as compared to
DVR because UPS has a problem of battery leakage.
3. Dynamic voltage restorer is better efficiency and
small in size as compared to UPS, SMES and
DSTATCOM.
4. Dynamic voltage restorer also helps to
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compensates the line voltage harmonic distortion.
• Disadvantages
1. Dynamic voltage restorer has the limiting current
conduction and the voltage injection capacity, to
obtain reduces the voltage drop across the DVR in
standby mode.
2. The size of the dynamic voltage restorer energy
storage unit is kept low, to reduce the cost of the
DVR. Due to voltage sag, the stored energy
attenuates very fast and to avoid the condition of
load tripping due to the inadequate stored energy.
E. Control technique used in DVR
Dynamic voltage restorer uses either in-phase
compensation method or energy optimization method
by minimum requirement of the power injection by
reducing the energy storage unit capacity.
Whatever the compensation techniques used, the
method should magnitude of voltage supply and the
phase angle to detect the voltage sag/sweep.
Voltage sag/swell detection methods used:
i. Fourier transforms
ii.Phase locked loop
iii.Vector control
iv.Peak value detection
v.Apply the wavelet transform
From the above method only Fourier transform,
wavelet transform and Vector control method supplies
both the magnitude of voltage and the phase shift.
Phase locked loop technique can supply only the phase
shift while peak value detection helps to find voltage
sag/sweep.
i.Fourier Transform
Fourier transform applying to each phase voltage, to
measured the phase and voltage magnitude of each
frequency component. It is the advantage of this
technique as compared with the other sag/sweep
detection methods.
ii.Phase Locked Loop (PLL)
In most of the cases Dynamic voltage restorer uses the
PLL to measured the phase angle and frequency
changes in the supply voltage, PLL is a closed loop
control system, that produced the signal with same
phase angle and frequency of the input supply voltage.
PLL consists of an oscillator to supplies the output
voltage.
Fig-4. Phase Locked Loop
Phase locked loop respond towards the phase angle
changes and frequency changes of the input supply
voltage by changes the oscillator frequency.
The loop filter in PLL is used for providing the voltage
to controlled oscillator which supplies the phase
output voltage. The oscillator output is compared to
the input if the two frequencies are different from each
other, oscillator frequency is required to match with
the input frequency.
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 International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) @ www.ijtsrd.com ISSN: 2456-6470
Simulation Result
Simulation of the Dynamic voltage restores control system
was performed using the MATLAB/SIMULINK in order get
the desired results.
Voltage sag and swells are simulated by connecting the
power grid to the non-linear loads and dynamic voltage
restorer is connected in series with the power grid to
provides the maximum voltage of 50% of phase to ground
voltage.
Conclusion
This paper gives the brief review about the power quality
disturbances, issues and its improvement methods. So, to
achieve the reliable supply in the smart grid there is a
need to adopt the latest communication technology to
monitor the power quality disturbances and problems.
The modelling and simulation of power quality
improvement using the dynamic voltage restorer (DVR)
has been done to verify the results of voltage sag/swells in
power grid supply voltage. The main purpose of using
Dynamic voltage restorer (DVR) in smart grid is maximize
the emery transmission efficiency.
This paper describes the different types of disturbances
that effects the power quality due to the connection of
electrical cars and PV system across the smart grid and
provides the methods for the improvement of power
quality of the electrical system.
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