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PacifiCorp’s Perspective on Using IEEE 519
Dennis Hansen, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—This paper gives the perspective of Pacifi-
Corp’s power quality engineer on use of the present
IEEE 519 standard as well as the new revisions being
proposed for 2005. The existing standard has been
very successful in establishing fair limits for both
current and voltage distortion. There are just a few
difficulties PacifiCorp has had in using 519. Nearly all
of these are being addressed in the 2005 revision.
Index Terms — Power quality, harmonics, electrical pollution,
standards.
I. INTRODUCTION
E leven years ago when I was new to the power quality
(PQ) discipline, one of my first assignments was to
“clean up the harmonic problems” we then had in the ski
resort towns of Northern Utah. True to my roots as an
IEEE member, the first thing I did was to obtain a copy of
IEEE 519-1992 [1]. I then began establishing relationships
for future education and problem solving among IEEE
members that seemed to know something about the subject
of power system harmonics. How did I know who to go
to? I looked at the names in the front pages of the
standard. And I was rewarded by plugging into the wealth
of their knowledge and experience that has not only served
me personally, but has also served my company and
customers very well. This was my first experience with
IEEE 519-1992.
Beyond these useful relationships pointed to by the 519
standard, I also learned more about harmonic distortion
from reading the standard, itself. As I did so, I soon
learned that it was not a textbook, though it contained
much tutorial material. I also learned that the most widely
used section was Section 10, the customer limits section.
Unfortunately Section 10 is ten long sections into the
document, and, by my definition, buried. I then began to
see how even the good standards—and IEEE 519-1992 is a
good standard—are compromises created by bodies with
sometimes conflicting priorities. We have major
Dennis Hansen is Principal Engineer for Power Quality with PacifiCorp,
an electric utility serving 6 states in the Western U.S. (e-mail:
dennis.hansen@pacificorp.com).
equipment manufacturers, academics, utility engineers,
industrial engineers, consultants, metering equipment
manufacturers, regulators, and others all making sure the
standards documents meet their needs. Sometimes this
makes for documents that are longer than are needed to
cover the subject, and IEEE 519 has suffered somewhat
from this committee authorship. So the challenge in the
updating of 519 is to represent all the valid interests,
address the needs of the times, and make the document
read as if it were written by one brilliant author.
With this in mind we now review specifically some of the
strengths and weaknesses of the existing IEEE 519
document, along with its proposed revisions, as viewed by
a utility engineer who has been privy to (IEEE’s standards
meetings are all open.) some of the discussions where
changes have been contemplated.
II. STRENGTHS OF IEEE 519-1992
Over the past twelve years of using IEEE 519-1992 in a
utility environment I have found the following strengths in
the document.
A. Well organized
Even though it is quite long, 519 is well organized. This is
a credit not only to the technical authoring workgroup, but
also the editors of IEEE. If someone has a specific
question about power system harmonics, and the answer is
in the document, it is likely it can be found without too
much digging.
B. Solid definitions
One can tell that someone spent a lot of time making sure
the definitions section corresponded well to the balance of
the document. This was especially important for a
document as complex 519, and as unfamiliar as harmonics
were to the utility industry in the early 1990’s.
C. Tutorial information filled a need.
While some of the tutorial information is a bit too detailed,
most of it is useful if one is looking to 519 for a tutorial or

references. And in the early 1990’s there was a greater
need for such a tutorial than there is today.
D. Limits are fair and represent the real world well
The limits for both current and voltage distortion seem to
work well for PacifiCorp. I have not heard much in the
way of serious challenge. Also, when the voltage harmonic
levels at our ski resorts exceeded these limits by just a few
percent (~7% THDv at some 12.5 kV buses), our
customers began to clearly experience more problems.
III. WEAKNESSES OF IEEE 519-1992
While IEEE 519-1992 has served the industry very well, it
is clearly in need of an update. Here are some specifics.
A. It’s too long
When we began writing our own company PQ standards in
the mid 1990’s it became obvious that 519 was simply too
long. Its size was intimidating to most utility engineers. It
was usually easier to pick up the phone and call someone
who had read 519 than to attempt it one’s self.
B. Some of the tutorial material is too theoretical
When I first obtained IEEE 519-1992 I attempted to learn
about power system harmonics by reading the tutorial
material. I ended up going to a short course on the subject.
The basic problem was that the material was not presented
as it would be in a well-written textbook. Rather, it was
written by a committee as a standard/reference/tutorial all
combined in one. And real-world examples were rather
sparse.
C. Interharmonics not covered
My first introduction to the interharmonic issue was in
identifying and mitigating a problem that was making
customers’ clocks go fast in three different towns in
Northern Utah. The source was difficult to pin down
because it was due to an induction furnace that adjusted its
temperature by frequency control. It injected its
interharmonic pollution into our system at the 31st to 37th
harmonics, and it wandered around in this range quite a bit.
At one point it excited a resonance in our subtransmission
system. When the excitation frequency was away from
this resonance we saw less of an effect. Once we found the
cause, we noted that 519 (and our company standard)
didn’t cover the case for distortion in between harmonics.
So the utility paid all of the mitigation cost.
D. Time-varying harmonics not well covered
As I measured various harmonic sources and effects
around our power system I sometimes ran into harmonics
that were only present at certain times. An example of this
is arc production or VFD load control that moves around
with time. This can cause time-varying harmonics. The
limit tables in 519 showed values that were to apply to
“worst case” distortion lasting longer than one hour. Yet I
had run into cases where the harmonic distortion caused
problems when present in bursts. The one-hour minimum
time seemed arbitrary, based on heating effects only.
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E. Limit language plays favorites
While the limit tables in Section 10 are very successful for
most cases involving 6-pulse rectifier pollution, the limits
are raised for higher pulse order mitigation. Why favor
this mitigation method over something like passive or
active filtering? I recall not understanding this. For years I
thought I was just dense. Finally I realized that the
standard was unfairly (and unintentionally, I’m sure)
favoring one method of mitigation over others.
F. Measurement protocols inadequate
I ran into several instances where most of the time
harmonic distortion injected into our system was within
limits, but occasionally the limits were exceeded. And on
these occasions I asked myself, “How often can these
limits be exceeded and still be OK? Is this customer in
violation if limits are exceeded just once in the
measurement session?” A fair answer to this question
required a statistical approach to measurement not found in
519-1992.
G. Flicker limits out of place
It is well known that the flicker limit diagram is out of
place in IEEE 519-1992. It was put in Section 10 so that it
would not be lost and forgotten. And while harmonics and
flicker are close cousins, they should really live in different
standards documents.
H. Not harmonized with IEC
In the early 1990’s there was little incentive for IEEE
standards to be harmonized with IEC standards. However,
since that time the world has changed. In particular, our
company was acquired by ScottishPower in the U.K. This,
in itself, provided incentive for me to learn more about IEC
standards. As I did so I learned that there was much value
to be obtained by learning the way they did things over in
Europe and elsewhere. In particular, I came to appreciate
their cohesive standards numbering system and their
statistical approach to measurement and analysis. Indeed,
519 would be well-served to include this kind of statistical
approach.
IV. PROBLEMS ADDRESSED BY 2005 REVISION
All of the problems in section III of this paper have been
addressed in the 2005 revision to IEEE 519. What follows
is a quick summary.
519’s length has been shortened dramatically by removing
nearly all of the tutorial material, re-writing it, and
including it in the new IEEE 519.1 Application Guide.
This Guide is excellent. It is filled with examples and
practical advice in dealing with harmonic distortion. I
highly recommend it when it becomes available. When the
revised 519 emerges it will include just the standard
without much explanation on how to use it. This is good.
The new 519 will include interharmonic limits written
around arc furnaces, but also applicable to other loads that
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produce distortion that is not phase-locked to the power
system frequency.
Measurement and analysis protocols will be harmonized
with the IEC methodologies to a much greater extent.
Since they are generally ahead of us on application of
statistical methods to PQ measurements, this is welcome.
[2] Nonsinusoidal Situations: Effects on the Performance
of Meters and Definitions of Power. IEEE Tutorial Course
Number 90EH0327-7-PWR.
[3] IEEE Standard 1459-2000. Standard Definitions for the
Measurement of Electric Power Quantities Under
Sinusoidal, Nonsinusoidal, Balanced, or Unbalanced
Conditions.

Other “cleanup” items mentioned above include the VIII. BIOGRAPHY

removal of the language favoring higher-pulse mitigation
and the removal of the flicker diagram. This flicker change
is made possible with the recent adoption of IEEE 1453,
another PQ standard that is in harmony with the IEC.
V. REMAINING ISSUES
As I consider all of these changes to 519, the only thing
that I can find that hasn’t yet been properly addressed is
the topic of metering accuracy in the presence of harmonic
distortion. And this more properly fits in the next revision
of the 519.1 Application Guide.
When I first took the PQ Engineering job at PacifiCorp in
1994 a few individuals had been visiting our customers,
telling them that they were being overcharged for their
energy because of the distortion present in the power
system. It was my responsibility to come up with a
technically sound utility response to that.
Dennis J. Hansen (M’77, SM’90) was born in
Provo, Utah, on June 12, 1952. Following his
schooling, including two years of service as a
missionary in the Philippines, he graduated from
Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, with a
BSEE in 1977.
His work experience with ScottishPower/
PacifiCorp and predecessors has included
Protective Relaying, R&D, and Generation
Engineering. For the last 11 years Dennis has
been working primarily in Power Quality and
Reliability with some Technology Development. He is also presently serving
as chair of the IEEE PES Voltage Quality working group.
In 1992 Dennis was named Engineer of the Year by the Utah section of the
IEEE for his work in stability monitoring. In 1998 he received a Spirit of
Excellence award by PacifiCorp for his role in mitigating the harmonics in
the Salt Lake area ski resorts. He is married with eight children.

I found an excellent IEEE tutorial [2] on the subject, but at

the time there was no common definition of power in the
presence of harmonics and unbalance. This left the issue
with an uncomfortable resolution. Now this problem has
been corrected with approval and publication of the IEEE
1459 standard [3]. However, a clear section in the 519.1
Application Guide, regarding metering accuracy, is still
called for.

VI. CONCLUSION
The IEEE 519-1992 standard has served our utility and its
customers well for several years. It is a comprehensive
document that also served the needs of its time with
harmonics tutorial material. Its limits section—the heart of
the document—was fair and balanced the needs of
harmonic producers with the needs of sensitive-load
customers.
Now with the introduction of other standards documents,
textbooks, and a changing industry, the proposed change in
content of IEEE 519 is wholly supported by this author.
These changes cover nearly all the needs which have
emerged over the last 14 years.

VII. REFERENCES
[1] IEEE Standard 519-1992. Recommended Practices and
Requirements for Harmonic Control in Electrical Power
Systems