293
ANALYSIS OF RESONANCE PROBLEMS AND HARMONIC FILTER DESIGN
IN POWER FACTOR CORRECTION CAPACITOR APPLICATIONS
N.D. Rao
Electrical & Computer EngineeringDept.
University of Calgary
Calgary, Alberta T2NlN4
E-mail:ndrao@enel.ucalgary.ca
Abstract
Increased use of power electronic control
equipment has made it necessary to pay
greater attention to harmonic voltages
and currents in power systems.
Moreover, power electronic control
equipment tends to operate at relatively
low power factor. Since low power
factor leads to poor voltage regulation,
increased line losses and larger plant VA
rating, it is normal practice to install
shunt capacitors either on the customer
service or on the utility system.
Unfortunately, however, in
power systems containing harmonic-
producing equipment, application of
power factor-correcting capacitors may
lead to a resonance condition between
the inductive reactance of the source and
the capacitive reactance of the capacitor
bank. If the resonance frequency occurs
at or near a harmonic current produced
by the load, severe voltage distortion and
harmonic current amplification will
occur. Very often, the increase in
harmonic current is large enough to
cause nuisance fuse blowing, breaker
tripping and overheating of equipment.
The paper begins with a review of the
nature of harmonic currents and voltages
and common sources of harmonic-
producing equipment. This will be
followed by the presentation of results
generated fkom the software developed
by the authors combining the strengths
of Mathcad and Excel spreadsheet. The
0-7803-4314-w981$io.000 1998 IEEE
S.I. Sporea A. Sawma
Electrical Department Colt Enginnering Cop
Snc-Lavalin, Calgary Calgary,Alberta
Chemical & Petroleum Business Unit
E-mail: spors@snc-1avalin.co"ittee
output from the program are the parallel
resonant fkequencies and the resulting
voltage distortion due to hannonic-
producing loads. In addition, the
program also determines the value of the
series inductor in the harmonic filter
bank that would shift the parallel
resonant fkequency to a value less than
the lowest-order harmonic term of the
load. Also computed are the bus voltage
distortion and filter harmonic duty.
Work is in progress to extend the scope
of the software fiom traditional passive
filters to active filters.
Introduction
Passive harmonic filters have been in use
on power systems for many years. They
are simple and need very little
maintenance. Two reasons are often
cited as their drawbacks: (i) need for
numerically intensive repetitive
calculations by skilled designers (ii)
sensitivity to topology changes (quite
common in low voltage applications)
and the resulting need for fkequent
update. The goal of this paper is to
address these problems through the
development of computer software
combining the best of a popular number-
crunching software (Mathcad) and Excel
spreadsheet. Output results generated by
the software for a sample system are
presented below. The topology and
configuration of capacitors and reactors
forming the filters is well known [13 and
willnot be repeated here.
 294

Pre-canned number crunching software

comes in many different flavors:
Mathcad, Matlab, Maple, Mathematica,
etc. Among these software packages,
Mathcad is (i) screen-oriented (ii) as
easy to use as a hand-held calculator, but
with a lot more power (iii) is available Fig. 1. Sample system
for professional and student use at
reasonable price (iv) has a superb on-line
tutorial. Mathcad also offers a unique 50
way to work with formulas, numbers, 40
text and graphs. For the developed ~ 3 0
e
software, an Excel spreadsheet has been ; 20
used both as a front-end and a rear-end 10
for convenience in system database 0
storage as well as display of find results. 0 5 IO 15
Seamless integration of these two harmonic order
popular s o h a r e packages has made
repetitive calculations easy and effortless Fig. 2 Load harmonic spectrum
for harmonic filter design.
Sample Droblem Sample Mathcad output showing
The system diagram is shown in Figure harmonic order of parallel resonant
1. System data are as follows. Short- fiequencies for the kVAR range
circuit MVA for the system equivalent at delivered by the power factor improving
12.47 kV is 200 (XlR = 2.4). bus capacitor is shown below.
Transformer rating: 1000 kVA, 12.47
kV/48OY V, R = 1%, X = 6%. The Samyle Mathead output
objective is to calculate (i) parallel
resonant fiequencies for power factor r 2001 8.8

correction capacitors delivering 200 - 6.22

800 kVAR (ii) the rss (root of the sum
of the squares) and THD (total harmonic
distortion) of the bus voltage without
and with 600 kVAR capacitor for a load
whose harmonic spectnun is shown in
Figure.2. (iii) design a harmonic filter to
tune the capacitor to 4.7 th harmonic (iv)
the parallel resonant frequencies without
and with the harmonic filter (v) the rss
and THS of the bus voltage without and
with the harmonic filter. A sample
output is also to be displayed.
ho =
5.08
4.4
ho refers to the harmonic order of the
parallel resonant frequencies for the
W A R figure in the specified range.
Since the load produces a significant 5th
harmonic current (Fig. Z), severe voltage
distortion can be expected to occur with
the use of a 600 kVAR capacitor. This is
c o h e d by the results presented in the
remainder of the paper.
 295

I Harmonic order versus KVAR

0 2 4 5 6 8 10

I harmonic order

Fig. 3. Software output: Harmonic order of parallel resonant fi-equencies for the specified
kVAR range

frequency versus voltage with and without

bus cawacitor
80
70
60
g so
e 40
+V I
-u- v2
30
20
10
0
0 500 1000 1500
fresuencv

Fig. 4 Software output: Frequency versus voltage with and without a 600 kVAR bus
capacitor for the load with the harmonic spectrum shown in Figure.2.

I Parallel resonant frequencies with and without

tuning inductor

0 200 400 600 800

kUAR

Fig. 5 Software output: Parallel resonant fiequencies with and without tuning inductor
 296
The program output for the rss and THD
of the bus voltage without and with the
600 kVAR capacitor is shown below.
Em voltage Bus mltage
dthout 600 with 600
I 277.5 12.05%) 288.1 128.5% 1 consideration. Efforts are under way to
Fig. 6 rss and THD of bus voltage
Evidently, parallel resonance between
the capacitor bank and source inductance
close to the 5th harmonic has led to the
amplification of this harmonic and an
increase in the THD of the bus voltage to
unacceptable level. The program output
also includes: fundamental capacitor
current = 721.5 A, rss value of capacitor
current = 1257.5 A. This large current
(175 % of rated value) is likely to blow
the fuses or trip the circuit breaker of the
capacitor bank.
Harmonic Filter Des-
To reduce the amplification of harmonic
load currents, it has been decided to shift
the parallel resonant frequency to 282
Hz ( 6 % below 300, corresponding to
4.7 harmonic order) by placing an
inductor in series with the capacitor
bank. The tuning inductance required for
600 kVAR is L = 46 pH. The parallel
resonant frequencies without and with
the filter inductor are displayed in Fig. 5.
Clearly, the parallel resonant eequency
has been shifted to 3.5, to a value below
the tuning fkequency of the filter.
Moreover, with the filter bank, the THD
of the bus voltage has been reduced from
25. 8 % (kVAR = 600) to 0.7 %.
Conclusion
Combining the best features of Mathcad
and Excel, harmonic filter design
software has been developed for easy
and effortless repetitive calculations.
Passive filters are most suitable for
filtering of distinct harmonics, especially
when there is also a need for reactive
power compensation. When the number
of h a r m o ~ c sto be filtered is large,
active filters deserve serious
integrate active and passive filter design
into an integrated whole.
References
[l] E.W. Kimbark, Direct Current
transmission. New York.' Wiley-
Interscience, 1971, pp. 343 - 387.
[2] N.D. Rao," lLaicrocomputer
spreadsheet calculations in power
systems", IEEE Transactions on Power
Apparatus and Systems, Vol. PAS-103,
No. 9, September 1984, pp. 2537- 2544.
[3] N.D. Rao, 'I Typical applications of a
microcomputer database manager to
power system problems", IEEE
tramactions on Power Systems, Vol.
PWRS-2, N0.3, AUmSt 1987, pp. 805-
817.
[4] T.E. Grebe," Application of
distribution system capacitor banks and
their impact on power quality", IEEE
Transactions on Industry Applications,
Volume. 32, No. 3, May/June 1996, pp.
7 14-719.
[5] W. Zhang," Modem harmonic
filtering techniques in power systems"
First International Symposium on
Electricity Delivery and Power Quality,
Brussels, Belgium, November 1996,
pp. 1- 19.