IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 22, NO.

3, JULY 2007 1847

Development of a Network-Wide Harmonic

Control Scheme Using an Active Filter
Karen Kennedy, Gordon Lightbody, Robert Yacamini, Michael Murray, and John Kennedy

Abstract—This paper charts the development of a network-wide

harmonic control scheme using an active filter. The individual
components required are discussed and developed. By examining
the operation of the scheme as a whole, fresh insights are gained
into the applicability of previously proposed techniques. The final
scheme was shown to systematically reduce harmonic voltage
levels across a network to within specified limits, without the need
for a priori network impedance information. This work hence
demonstrates the feasibility and effectiveness of active filter based
Fig. 1. Block diagram representation of network-wide control block.
network-wide harmonic control.
Index Terms—Active filter, active power line conditioner
(APLC), harmonic control, optimization.
subsequent sections with a review of previous work in the area
together with a description and justification of the chosen im-
I. INTRODUCTION plementation. The effectiveness of the overall scheme is then in-
vestigated under various network conditions. It is demonstrated
ARMONIC distortion is a problem which dates back to
H the earliest days of power system engineering. However,
as technology evolves, so too do the problems and solutions re-
that with due consideration to the interaction between the indi-
vidual components, a scheme can be designed to yield effective
dynamic control of harmonics at a network-wide level. As a re-
lated to harmonic distortion. Increasingly the cumulative effect sult of this global approach, fresh insights are gained into the
of distributed small nonlinear loads such as PCs are leading to applicability of previously proposed techniques and the feasi-
significant levels of harmonics across power system networks. bility and effectiveness of the approach is established.
The distributed nature of the harmonic sources requires a cor-
responding shift in focus, from single load compensation to a
more network-wide approach to harmonic control. Advances II. PROPOSED FEEDBACK CONTROL SCHEME
in switching technology and the limitations of passive filters
A general block diagram representation of the proposed net-
have led to the proposal of active filters as a means of net-
work-wide harmonic control scheme is shown in Fig. 1. Voltage
work-wide harmonic control. The success of active filter instal-
and current measurement are taken from various points in the
lations for single load compensation indicates the potential ben-
network and analyzed to extract fundamental and harmonic con-
efits of system-wide dynamic harmonic control. As a result a
tent, represented by the vector . This information is then
significant body of research has amassed investigating the var-
used by the control algorithm to calculate the reference current
ious necessary components of such a network-wide harmonic
for the active filter which then injects a compensating current
control scheme, such as the placement of measurement devices,
into the network at bus . From the diagram is it is clear
network-wide harmonic analysis and the active filter control
that a number of components are necessary to implement such
algorithm.
a scheme. Initially a model of the power system network is re-
However, in many cases these individual components have
quired to test the effectiveness of the harmonic control. Next is
been examined in isolation and the feasibility and effectiveness
a means of extracting the necessary network-wide harmonic in-
of full feedback dynamic control of network-wide harmonics
has yet to be established. Taking the West Connaught area of the formation. In addition an algorithm is required to use this infor-
Irish electrical grid as a test system, this paper investigates the mation to determined the active filter injection current reference
development and operation of network-wide harmonic control for network-wide harmonic reduction. Finally, the dynamics in-
using an active filter. The proposed feedback control scheme is volved in the generation of the active filter injection current are
presented in the following section and the primary components modeled.
introduced. These individual components are addressed in the The development and implementation of each of these com-
ponents are described in detail in subsequent section.
Manuscript received July 26, 2005. This work was supported by the ESB
National Grid. Paper no. TPWRD-00425-2005. III. POWER SYSTEM NETWORK
The authors are with the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering,
University College, Cork, Ireland (e-mail: g.lightbody@ucc.ie). The system chosen for testing the proposed harmonic control
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. scheme is presented in Fig. 2. This network represents an area of
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2007.899264 the Irish 110 kV transmission system located in the north west
0885-8977/$25.00 © 2007 IEEE
1848
Fig. 2. Single line diagram of West Connaught network with assigned node
numbers.
region of the Republic of Ireland. The network was first mod-
eled in conjunction with ESB National Grid as part of an in-
vestigation in harmonic propagation in the area. It was found to
be particularly susceptible to resonance peaks, and correspond-
ingly, potential harmonic amplification, due to the relatively iso-
lated nature of the network and the large number of capacitive
devices.
The network was modeled using the SimPowerSystem
toolbox of the Matlab Simulink software package which en-
abled frequency analysis of the network and the identification
of potential resonance problems. Distributed nonlinear loads
were introduced across the network based on a knowledge of
load type in each area and the typical load composition for each
load type [1]. Similarly, the inherent harmonics introduced by
the TCR in the SVC were modeled according to IEEE 519
[2]. However, these were found to be primarily filtered by the
dedicated harmonic filters in the SVC design.
The resulting harmonic voltage levels across the network
were compared against European Standard EN50160 and it was
found that 5th harmonic levels exceeded the specified 6% limit
at a number of buses. All other harmonic orders were within
their respective limits. Using the frequency analysis tools of
the Matlab package the frequency response of the network
under various capacitor switching conditions was investigated.
It was found that the switching out of the Cathleens Falls
capacitor led to a resonant peak near the 7th harmonic causing
a corresponding rise in 7th harmonic levels across the network
as demonstrated in Fig 3.
IV. NETWORK-WIDE HARMONIC ANALYSIS
With the development of active filtering came a corre-
sponding shift in the focus of harmonic analysis techniques
from previous batch processing techniques such as the FFT to
methods capable of dynamically tracking changing harmonics.
In the quest for ever more accurate tracking of power system
harmonics, methods such as the Kalman filter [3]–[8] artificial
neural networks [9], [10] Singular Value Decomposition [11],
fuzzy regression [12], [13] and genetic algorithms [14] have
been proposed. However, when power engineers began to
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 22, NO. 3, JULY 2007
Fig. 3. Harmonic voltage distortion before and after switching of Cathleens
Falls capacitor.
develop active filters for commercial use it was found that
many of these techniques were too complex for actual imple-
mentation [15]. What was actually required were simple robust
methods of harmonic extraction. This led to a divergence in the
field of harmonic signal analysis. Some researchers pursued
more complex techniques with improved accuracy, under the
assumption that the technology would later become available
for feasible implementation. Others sought simpler alternatives
for immediate implementation using current technology. The
most commonly implemented of these is Instantaneous Reac-
tive Power Theory (IRPT) which calculates the instantaneous
power using Parks transform on measured 3-phase voltages and
current [16]–[18]. However, while IRPT remains a dominant
choice for commercially available filters, there are recognized
limitations to this method including demonstrated poor per-
formance in the presence of unbalance and voltage distortion
[19]–[21]. Another technique of note is Synchronous Reference
Frame (SRF) which similarly relies on Park’s Transform, while
demonstrating better performance in the presence of unbalance
and voltage distortion [22]–[24]. While many other techniques
have been proposed [25]–[27] in each case the feasibility of
implementation was a fundamental constraint, limiting the
accepted computational complexity of the approach.
However, in [28] Saiz and Guadalupe described the imple-
mentation of the Kalman filter algorithm on an 8-bit micropro-
cessor for the continuous real-time tracking of power system
harmonics demonstrating the feasibility of on-line implementa-
tion. Following this encouraging result, Rechka et al. [29] in-
vestigated the Kalman filter as a means of harmonic detection
for active filter operation. The filter was compared against IRPT
and Fourier techniques and it was concluded that improved de-
tection quality was achievable with the Kalman filter algorithm.
This work was taken a step further by Barros and Perez [30]
who implemented a Kalman filter controlled active filter in a
laboratory set-up demonstrating that the Kalman filter could be
KENNEDY et al.: DEVELOPMENT OF A NETWORK-WIDE HARMONIC CONTROL SCHEME
feasible means to improve the dynamic performance of the ac-
tive filter. As a result of the reported feasibility and effective-
ness of the Kalman filter based active filter control it was de-
cided here to adopt the algorithm for network-wide harmonic
analysis. The implementation of the analysis is described in the
following sections.
A. Harmonic Signal Analysis
The Kalman filter is an recursive algorithm which seeks to
optimally estimate the value of a number of parameters known
as states [31]. Because the state estimate is updated with each
new measured data point it is particularly suitable for tracking
changing parameters and non-stationary signal analysis. For the
application of harmonic analysis the harmonic signal is typically
modeled in terms of its Fourier components as follows:
(1)
where is the sampled harmonic signal at time , harms is the
set of harmonic orders presented and and the amplitude
and phase respectively of the th harmonic order at time .
Measurement error is represented by the zero mean Gaussian
noise process . The states to be estimated are then assigned as
(2)
Thus, the states can be linearly related to the measurement
through a measurement matrix given by
(3)
A propagation model is then used to model the expected
variation of the states over time. The accurate modelling of
power system dynamics is in itself a topic of much research with
various proposed models [32]–[35]. However, to minimize com-
putational burden, a random walk model was adopted whereby
is the Identity matrix and the variation of each state over
time is modeled by
(4)
where is a zero mean Gaussian white noise process. The
Kalman filter algorithm uses the covariance matrices of ,
and , and respectively, to recursively estimate the state
vector so as to minimize the variance of the error. A flow dia-
gram of the algorithm is giving in Fig 4. By varying the value of
and the filter can be effectively “tuned” to achieve the de-
sired performance. An increase in will increase the dynamic
tracking capability while and increase in will improve noise
rejection. Appropriately choosing and to balance these
conflicting characteristics can prove a difficult task and has been
a limiting factor in the use of the Kalman filter in certain applica-
tions. A significant benefit of the chosen model is that its linear
1849
Fig. 4. Kalman filter algorithm.
nature ensures it is relatively robust to tuning parameter varia-
tion, with little chance of divergence. In fact, it has been shown
that for this model it is not the actual values but merely the ratio
of and which affects the filter operation [36], simplifying
the tuning process.
This model has been successfully applied to the analysis of
power system harmonic measurements [5], [6]. However, its
failure during fundamental frequency deviation is widely docu-
mented [3], [37]. For this reason many researchers have sought
to update the fundamental frequency of the signal model by
means of external fundamental frequency estimation. For this
application a zero-crossing method with polynomial fitting as
described by Begovic et al. in [38] was employed to estimate
the fundamental frequency. This method was chosen as the zero-
crossing is robust and easy to implement while the polynomial
fitting greatly increases the accuracy of the estimate and pro-
vides robustness to harmonic distortion, eliminating the need
for a pre-filter to remove these components.
B. Harmonic State Estimation
The previous model can be used to estimate the harmonic con-
tent of a single measurement. To get a complete picture of the
voltage levels across the network would require the placement
of measurement devices at each node in the network, which may
not be economically or logistically feasible. A preferable solu-
tion is to place a smaller number of GPS-synchronized measure-
ment devices across the network and use both voltage and cur-
rent measurement to solve for the remaining harmonic voltages.
This technique, known as state estimation, has been employed
by power system engineers for many years [39]–[41] and in-
vokes the use of network admittance information to relate volt-
ages and currents across the network by
(5)
(6)
Here, and are the time-varying complex phasor vectors
of node injection currents and line currents respectively at the
th harmonic frequency and and are the bus and branch
admittance matrices at that frequency. These relationships form
the basis of a measurement matrix, , relating a single current
measurement to network-wide harmonic voltage information.
Focussing initially on an injection current measurement at node
1850
, the complex phasor relationship of (5) can be split into its real
and imaginary components with
(7)
(8)
Similar to (1), the actual current measurement is given by
(9)
A similar relationship can be derived for the line current mea-
surement. Recognizing that the real and imaginary voltage com-
ponents are the desired states to be estimated, a relationship can
be developed between any current measurement and the state
vector containing fundamental and harmonic voltage compo-
nents across the network in the form of a measurement matrix
. Thus, by careful selection of the number and location of the
measurement devices network-wide harmonic voltage informa-
tion can be estimated.
C. Placement of Measurement Devices
In large systems determining the optimum placement of
measurement devices can be a difficult task and as a result it
is a problem which has been the focus of much research. Pro-
posed approaches tend to evaluate the effectiveness of a given
measurement-set based on one of two indicators; estimation
error [42]–[45] or network observability [46]–[49]. To ensure
the most general applicability, it was decided here to place the
devices based on the observability of the resulting network
rather than estimation error. Based on the work presented by
Baldwin et al. in [49], an initial measurement set was obtained
which resulted in a proposed measurement set of 5 devices.
Due to the small size of the network and the small number of
measurement devices involved, it was possible to determine
that network observability could not be achieved with less than
5 devices. Testing all possible sets of 5 devices identified 4
possible measurement sets that ensured observability. It was
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 22, NO. 3, JULY 2007
Fig. 5. Actual and estimated 5th, 7th, 11th, and 13th harmonic voltage ampli-
tudes at Node 18 during harmonic state estimator initialization.
decided to place devices at nodes 2, 6, 10, 17, and 24 as this
placement-set gave the maximum number of the line current
measurements and hence maximum information retrieval.
The full network model based on these measurement points
was then developed using (1), (5), and (6) with a sample fre-
quency of 10 kHz. It was decided to limit the analysis to the
fundamental, 5th, 7th, 11th, and 13th order harmonics as higher
orders tended to be negligible. With 2 states per harmonic this
resulted in 10 states per node. Reducing the bus admittance ma-
trix to only source nodes as proposed in [50] allowed the number
of nodes directly estimated to be reduced to 15 giving a total of
150 states estimated by the Kalman filter harmonic state esti-
mator. From these states, the harmonic levels at the remaining
14 nodes could be directly calculated.
D. Harmonic State Estimation Results
To test the accuracy and tracking capability of the proposed
measurement system it was tested under a both steady state and
non-stationary operating conditions. Fig. 5 presents the initial
convergence of the estimate of the harmonic voltage levels at
Node 18. It can be seen that the estimator converges to the cor-
rect values in just over a quarter of a cycle of the fundamental
frequency despite the fact that there is no meter at this node.
In order to test the dynamic response of the estimator a sudden
change of harmonic levels was introduced by switching out the
Cathleens Falls capacitor 2 s into the simulation. Because of
the introduction of a resonant peak near the 7th harmonic, the
switching of this capacitor resulted in a sudden large jump in 7th
harmonic levels across the network. In addition the switching
introduces transients which distort the measured signal. This can
clearly be seen in Fig. 6 which shows the measured voltage and
current waveforms at the Cathleens Falls bus.
Fig. 7 examines the harmonic estimates at node 25 during the
simulation. The sudden large rise in the 7th harmonic voltage
is easily identified. As expected the convergence time for each
harmonic will vary due to different Kalman filter tuning param-
eters for each harmonic order, and the different levels of voltage
change. However, in general, the convergence times are typi-
cally of the order of 50 ms. Clearly, this convergence time is
significantly greater than the 0.005 s initial convergence. It is
also longer than the time taken for visible switching transients
KENNEDY et al.: DEVELOPMENT OF A NETWORK-WIDE HARMONIC CONTROL SCHEME
Fig. 6. Measured voltage and current waveforms at the Cathleens Falls bus
(Node 29) during the switching out of the installed capacitor bank. The capacitor
is switched at the zero cross point of the capacitor current.
Fig. 7. Actual and estimated 5th, 7th, 11th, and 13th harmonic voltage ampli-
tudes at Node 25 before, during, and after the switching out of the Cathleens
Falls capacitor.
to decay. While such switching transients will inevitably affect
the estimation an additional potential influence is the character-
istic “memory” effect of the filter.
As a recursive algorithm the Kalman filter is inherently in-
fluenced by past estimates. In continuously varying signals this
allows for extremely swift dynamic tracking however, in this
particular situation where the state vector has been constant for
a relatively long period of time, the Kalman filter has “learnt”
that the frequency content of the signal is constant and hence
there is an inevitable inertia as the estimator struggles to adapt to
such a large deviation from previous behavior. Techniques have
been developed which aim to limit the effect of past memory
and emphasize most recent data which can improve dynamic re-
sponse under such conditions [51]. Alternatively, more complex
models which more accurately represent power system prop-
agation has been proposed [32]–[35]. However, these models
significantly increase the computational complexity of the esti-
mation and hence are currently infeasible for actual implemen-
tation. Overall, while limiting factors of the dynamic tracking
performance of the estimator have been identified the perfor-
mance of the harmonic state estimation is well within the re-
quirements for effective harmonic control.
1851
Fig. 8. Sample network voltages plotted in relation to boundary of radius V .
V. ACTIVE FILTER CONTROL
A. Calculation of
The application of an active filter for network-wide control
is still a relatively new concept. However the success of the
filter in single load compensation has ensured that there is al-
ready a significant body of work investigating the calculation of
for such an application. The aim of network-wide harmonic
compensation is to reduce harmonic distortion across the net-
work rather than just at a single bus or node. A more specific
aim is to bring harmonic voltage levels within limits specified
by a relevant standard such as IEEE 519, or the European stan-
dard EN50160. Current research tends to fall into two main ap-
proaches, harmonic damping or optimization based techniques.
However, as discussed in [52], neither approach is capable of
achieving network-wide harmonic compliance without a priori
information and hence an iterative search algorithm (ISA) was
developed which was shown to effectively achieve harmonic
compliance across a network under both steady-state and dy-
namic conditions. It is this algorithm which will be used to con-
trol the active filter current injection in our control scheme.
To ensure network-wide harmonic compliance the algorithm
adopts an optimization based approach, visualizing the problem
as in Fig. 8 with the circular boundary representing the speci-
fied limit on the magnitude of the voltage for a particular har-
monic frequency. The actual harmonic voltages at each node
can be plotted on this complex plane. The aim of the control
is to bring each node within the circular boundary using an it-
erative feedback approach rather than offline optimization re-
quiring additional network impedance information. By inter-
preting the system response to a previous change in active filter
injection the required injection to achieve the desired voltage
change can be determined. This can be represented visually as
in Fig. 9 where the required current injection to bring to
is given by
(10)
(11)
Thus, by interpreting the system response to previous active
power line conditioner (APLC) injection, the required change
1852
Fig. 9. Evolution of bus j voltage where the required current injection for com-
pliance is calculated based on system response to the previous change in current
according to (1).
Fig. 10. Iterative compensation of the hth harmonic voltage at buses l and n
according to (12) with set to 0.5.
in current to give the desired voltage can be calculated inde-
pendent of the bus impedance. By adopting this approach ex-
cess harmonic voltage distortion at a single bus can be brought
within the boundary in a two-step process as illustrated in Fig. 9.
However, if there is excess distortion at more than one bus in the
network then the inter-dependence of the network voltages must
be taken into account. In such as case it is preferable to gradu-
ally bring each bus voltage towards the boundary in an iterative
fashion. In this way, the control algorithm cycles through the
set of excess buses and on each iteration a single bus is moved
a fraction , of the distance towards its desired voltage until all
buses are within the boundary. Hence, the change in is
given by
(12)
where . A typical response for 2 excess buses with
set to 0.5 is shown in Fig. 10. At each iteration information
obtained from the previous change in APLC current is used to
determine the next current change according to (12). This pro-
cedure can be expanded to any number of excess nodes, system-
atically bringing each node towards the boundary in an iterative
fashion until a value for is reached whereby all voltages
are within limits. Because the algorithm iteratively searches for
a suitable it has been termed the “iterative search method”.
Should system conditions change and the voltages increase be-
yond the specified limits, the iterative search algorithm will
modify to bring them back within the feasible region once
more. Once convergence is achieved it is also desired that min-
imal be injected to meet the standard requirements and
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 22, NO. 3, JULY 2007
TABLE I
CALCULATED ACTIVE FILTER INJECTION FOR NETWORK-WIDE
5TH HARMONIC COMPENSATION
Fig. 11. Block diagram representation of the internal operation of the active
filter.
that the current will correspondingly decrease should system
conditions cause a further reduction of voltage harmonics. This
was achieved by modifying the proposed algorithm to reduce
the active filter injection to 99.5% of its original value once har-
monic compliance is attained.
The proposed algorithm was tested against a standard non-
linear optimization of active filter injection current based on an
accurate knowledge of network impedance information. The re-
sulting calculated active filter injections required to bring 5th
harmonic voltage levels in the West Connaught network within a
specified 6% limit are compared in Table I. Clearly, the methods
yield almost identical current injections, indicating the effec-
tiveness of the proposed approach.
B. Generation of
Once the iterative search algorithm has determined the
desired reference current for the active filter injection it must
then be converted to an actual current injection by the active
filter control circuit. While the active filter is often modeled
as an ideal current source, in order to ensure maximum ac-
curacy during dynamic simulations it was decided to adopt a
more detailed model of the filter operation. The chosen model
is based on [53] and can be represented in simplified block
diagram form as in Fig. 11. The desired current is then
compared with the actual current value to generate an
error signal. This error signal is input into the discrete time
current controller which outputs the harmonic voltage
required across the inductor to generate the desired active filter
injection. The actual system voltage at point of connection
of the filter is then added to to yield the required voltage
at the inverter side of the inductor . The time taken for
the computation of is represented by a single time delay.
A pulsewidth modulation technique controls the switching
of the bridge inverter to convert this desired voltage into an
actual continuous time output. Finally, the difference between
the voltage generated at the inverter terminals and the actual
network voltage causes the filter current to flow through
the inductor .
In [53], it was found that deadbeat control resulted in effective
performance, tracking the reference current with a 2 sample-
time delay, and was thus adopted for the current controller C(z).
KENNEDY et al.: DEVELOPMENT OF A NETWORK-WIDE HARMONIC CONTROL SCHEME 1853

Fig. 12. Initial variation of the 5th harmonic output of the iterative search al-
gorithm when switched in during stationary power system operation. (a) Mag-
nitude of I and (b) phase of I .
Fig. 13. Variation of magnitude of network-wide 5th harmonic voltage distor-
tion in response to active filter current injection of Fig. 12 during stationary
power system operation.

For a sample time , the deadbeat controller can be directly

designed as

(13)

While the deadbeat controller gives good tracking perfor-

mance, a possible drawback is that it can lead to ringing in
the control signal. However, examination of the signals in the
control loop indicated that this was not an issue here. As an
alternative to Jintakosonwit’s work, the use of a discrete time
Proportional and Integral (PI) controller was also investigated.
However, it was found that overall the deadbeat controller was Fig. 14. 7th harmonic output of the iterative search algorithm before and after
the switching out of the Cathleens Falls capacitor. (a) Magnitude and (b) phase
both simpler to implement and gave superior results. of I .

VI. RESULTS OF ENTIRE SCHEME

The full feedback harmonic control scheme as described in
Section II was implemented using the Matlab Simulink package.
As only 5th and 7th harmonic orders exceeded limits during the
investigated scenarios, the iterative search algorithm was only
applied for these orders. Theoretically the algorithm could be
executed at each sample time of the harmonic state estimation.
However, in order to allow changes to propagate through the
system, the iterative search algorithm was set to recalculate the
active filter reference current every 0.1 s. The result of the full
control scheme under a variety of steady-state and dynamic con-
ditions is examined in the following section.
A. Scenario 1: Initial Convergence
The first scenario to be tested was the switching in of the ac-
tive filter to the power system operating under steady state con-
ditions 0.1 s into the simulation. The Cathleens Falls capacitor
is switched in during the simulation hence 7th harmonic voltage
levels are within limit and thus only the 5th harmonic control is
under investigation.
The results of the 5th harmonic control are shown in Figs. 12
and 13. Fig. 12 shows the variation of the magnitude and phase
of over time. A plot of the fifth harmonic voltages across
the system in Fig. 13 demonstrates the effectiveness of the vari-
ation of the fifth harmonic injection current. With each iteration
the voltage levels drop towards the 6% limit and compliance is
reached at all nodes within 1 s.
B. Scenario 2: Capacitor Switching
Scenario 2 involves the switching out of the Cathleens Falls
capacitor 2 s into the simulation, resulting in a sudden rise in 7th
harmonic levels. This section presents the result of the harmonic
control before, during and after the switching event. Starting
with the 7th harmonic, the amplitude and phase of the active
filter injection current at this frequency is shown in Fig. 14,
while Fig. 15 plots the 7th harmonic voltage response at all the
nodes in the system.
Prior to the capacitor switching the 7th harmonic levels in
the system are below the 5% limit and hence is zero. The
switching out of the Cathleens Falls capacitor causes the 7th
harmonic voltage levels to rise above the 5% limit and the it-
erative search algorithm responds by increasing . Based on
the information obtained from the initial injection it begins to
modify accordingly, each time reducing the 7th harmonic
voltages, bringing them closer to the desired limit. An inter-
esting phenomena is the apparent “drop” in the magnitude of
at 2.4 s. Comparison with the phase of at this time
shows a dramatic change from degrees to degrees.
Most significantly, examination of the 7th harmonic voltages at
this iteration show a corresponding significant drop in voltage
1854
Fig. 15. Variation of the network-wide 7th harmonic voltage levels before and
after the switching out of the Cathleens Falls capacitor with 7th harmonic active
filter injection as in Fig. 14.
Fig. 16. Close-up of the magnitude of 5th harmonic voltage distortion at node
7 during capacitor switching in response to the active filter current injection of
Fig. 17.
levels demonstrating that the iterative search algorithm does not
merely increase the current to reduce voltage distortion, rather,
it utilizes both amplitude and phase adjustments to achieve the
desired goal.
Fig. 16 presents a close-up of the 5th harmonic voltages at
node 7, as this is the only node in the network to exceed limits
beyond initial active filter compensation. Fig. 17 shows the cor-
responding active filter current injection during the scenario.
From the figures it can be seen that the iterative search algo-
rithm adjusts the active filter injection to bring the 5th harmonic
voltage below limits within 1 s of simulation. Initial transients
visible on the harmonic voltage estimate will inevitably delay
the convergence of the iterative search algorithm. In addition
the switching of the capacitor causes the 5th harmonic voltages
across the network to rise slightly, exceeding limits at Node 7
only, by a mere 0.0002 pu. In order to adjust to compensate
for a voltage change of such small magnitude requires extremely
accurate measurements. Unfortunately due to the inter-depen-
dence of the Kalman filter estimation a change in a single har-
monic voltage will affect the estimation of the entire state vector.
In this case the large changes in 7th harmonic voltage levels
directly after the capacitor switching result in perturbations of
the 5th harmonic estimate. As the excess network-wide 7th har-
monic voltages draw nearer the specified 5% limit, the step
changes in voltage level become less dramatic. Consequently,
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 22, NO. 3, JULY 2007
Fig. 17. Variation of the 5th harmonic output of the iterative search algorithm
before and after the switching out of the Cathleens Falls capacitor. (a) Magni-
tude of I and (b) phase of I .
the perturbations of the 5th harmonic voltage estimates reduce
and the algorithm can respond effectively to bring harmonic
levels within limits once more. Overall, both the 5th and 7th har-
monic voltage levels are reduced to below limits within 1.5 s of
the switching event occurring.
VII. DISCUSSION OF RESULTS
The aim of this work was to systematically develop a com-
plete network-wide harmonic control scheme. It was shown that
by the expansion and merging of previously proposed models
the Kalman filter can be used to perform network-wide har-
monic state estimation. However, an external fundamental fre-
quency estimator is required with the use of a linear model. In
addition, while initial convergence properties were extremely
fast the response time to sudden changes after prolonged steady-
state operation was much slower. Due to the likelihood of such
scenarios during actual power system operation it indicates the
potential need to incorporate additional compensation for the
“memory” aspect of the filter. Another identified limiting factor
was the inter-dependence of the estimated states whereby large
variation in one harmonic order was seen to delay the conver-
gence of a different harmonic.
When evaluating previously proposed techniques for calcula-
tion of the active filter reference current for network-wide har-
monic control it was found that there were significant limitations
involved. As a result a novel control algorithm was proposed
which iteratively brought harmonic voltages within specified
limits without the need for a priori network impedance informa-
tion. Overall the complete scheme was demonstrated to respond
accurately and robustly under various power system operation
conditions indicating the potential benefits and feasibility of net-
work-wide harmonic control using and active filter.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank ESB National Grid for advice
throughout this research.
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Karen Kennedy received the B.Eng. degree in electrical and electronic engi-
neering from University College, Cork, Ireland, in 1999, and the Ph.D. degree
in electrical engineering from University College in 2004.
Her research interest include the power system modeling and the application
of active filters for network-wide harmonic control.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 22, NO. 3, JULY 2007
Gordon Lightbody received the M.Eng. degree with distinction in 1989 and
the Ph.D. degree in 1993 in electrical and electronic engineering from Queen’s
University, Belfast, Ireland.
His research interests include nonparametric modelling, local model net-
works for process modeling and control, model-based predictive control,
fuzzy/neural systems, and nonlinear control. This work focused on key applica-
tion areas, including wind power, power system control and harmonic analysis.
Robert Yacamini has been Chair of electrical engineering at University Col-
lege, Cork, Ireland, since 1997. Prior to that, he held positions in UMIST and
Aberdeen University. Current research activities include downhole pump over-
voltages; active filters for power systems; harmonics; electrical power quality;
and wind energy.
Michael Murray is with ESB National Grid, Dublin, Ireland.
John Kennedy is with ESB National Grid, Dublin, Ireland.