Module 2

Power Frequency Disturbances

1
 Power Frequency Disturbance
 Events that are slower and longer lasting compared to electrical
transients
 A voltage sag is a short-duration (typically 0.5 to 30 cycles)
reduction in RMS voltage caused by faults on the power system
and the starting of large loads, such as motors
 Last anywhere from one complete cycle to several seconds or even
minutes
 Flickering of lights
 Bumpy ride in an elevator
 Effects are predominantly felt in the long run, and such disturbances do
not result in immediate failure of electrical devices
 Equipment that is old and has been subjected to harmful disturbances
over a prolonged period is more susceptible to failure than new
equipment
 Easily measured using instrumentation that is simple in construction
Volatge sag
Motor Starting

Utility faults

Load transfer
Motor starting
Event that can last from half of a cycle to several
seconds
100 KVA
5% REACTANCE
F.L. SEC.AMPS = 120

Figure 1: Example1 Figure 2: Motor-starting current waveform

Arc furnaces

Figure 3: Typical current draw by arc furnace at the primary Transformer

Large capacitor banks and Harmonic filters to improve the
power factor
Switched on when the furnace is brought on line and
switched off when the arc furnace is off line
Dedicated utility power lines to minimize their impact on
other power users
Utility faults
70% of the utility-related faults occur in overhead power
lines
Causes are lightning strikes, contact with trees or birds
and animals, and failure of insulator
Clear the fault by opening and closing the faulted circuit
using re-closers  40 to 60 cycles
Figure 4: Voltage sag at a refinery
due to a utility fault

• The sag lasted for

approximately 21 cycles
Case 1
Fault on Feeder 4 CB4
5-6 cycles for breaker operation
Breaker will remain open for typically a minimum of 12
cycles up to 5 s depending on utility reclosing practices

Figure 5. Fault locations on the utility power system

Case 2
Fault on one of the feeders from the substation
Both breakers A and B must operate
The distribution fault on feeder 4 may be cleared either by the
lateral fuse or the breaker, depending on the utility’s fuse
saving practice

Figure 5. Fault locations on the utility power system

Load transfer from one power source to another
Transfer of load from the utility source to the standby
generator source during loss of utility power

Figure 7: Voltage sag due to generator step load application

The nominal 480-V generator bus experienced a sag to

389 V that lasted for approximately 1 sec
Frequency deviations occur along with voltage
changes.
±5 Hz for a brief duration during this time
Ensure that sensitive loads can perform satisfactorily
within this frequency tolerance for the duration of the
disturbance
 Estimating Voltage Sag Performance

1. Determine the number and characteristics of voltage sags that

result from transmission system faults.
2. Determine the number and characteristics of voltage sags that
result from distribution system faults (for facilities that are
supplied from distribution systems)
3. Determine the equipment sensitivity to voltage sags. This will
determine the actual performance of the production process based
on voltage sag performance calculated in steps 1 and 2.
4. Evaluate the economics of different solutions that could
improve the
performance, either on the supply system (fewer voltage sags) or
within the customer facility (better immunity).
Area of Vulnerability
An area of vulnerability is determined by the total
circuit miles of exposure to faults that can cause
voltage magnitudes at an end-user facility to drop
below the equipment minimum voltage sag ride-
through capability.

Figure 8: Illustration of an area of vulnerability

 Equipment Sensitivity to Voltage Sag
 Duration and magnitude of the sag

Equipment sensitive to only the magnitude of a

voltage sag.
Devices in this group are sensitive to the minimum (or maximum)
voltage magnitude experienced during a sag (or swell).
The duration of the disturbance is usually of secondary
importance for these devices.
 Under-voltage relays
 Process controls
 Motor drive controls
 Automated machines (e.g., semiconductor manufacturing
equipment).
Equipment sensitive to both the magnitude
and duration of a voltage sag
The equipment mis-operates or fails when the power
supply output voltage drops below specified values
The important characteristic for this type of equipment
is the duration that the RMS voltage is below a
specified threshold at which the equipment trips
Equipment that uses electronic power supplies.
Flicker
A low-frequency phenomenon in which the magnitude of
the voltage or frequency changes at such a rate as to be
perceptible to the human eye
Flicker is caused when a load that requires large currents
during startup is initially energized
If the starts are frequent or if the current requirement of
the load fluctuates rapidly during each cycle of operation,
then flicker effects can be quite pronounced
Arc furnaces are normally operated with capacitor banks
or capacitor bank/filter circuits, which can amplify some
of the characteristic frequency harmonic currents
generated by the furnace, leading to severe light flicker
Figure 9: Voltage changes during elevator
operation in a residential multiunit complex

Figure 10: Typical arc furnace supply

voltage indicating voltage fluctuation
at the flicker frequency
Low-frequency noise
Low-frequency noise is a signal with a frequency that
is a multiple of the fundamental power frequency

Figure 11.Low-frequency noise superimposed on the 480-V

bus after switching off the capacitor bank
Isolation Transformer

Figure 12: Differential signal Figure 13:Common mode signal

Differential mode noise Suppression of differential mode no

Common mode noise Suppression of Common mode noise

 Isolation Transformer: Construction

DOUBLE ISOLATION

1. Placing grounded metallic safety or

Faraday shields between the 1˚and 2˚
2. Reinforced insulation
Figure 18: Isolation Transformer
Construction
SOURCE EQUIPMENT
SIDE

Figure 18: Isolation Transformer Operation

 𝑉 1 ∗ 𝐶 𝑃𝑆
𝑉 2=
𝐶 𝑃𝑆 +𝐶 𝑆𝑆

𝐴= 20 log
( 𝑉1
𝑉2 )
Figure 19: Isolation Transformer Attenuation
Find the attenuation of a transformer that
can limit 1 V common mode noise to 10 mV
of differential mode noise at the secondary:
Voltage Regulators
Tap-changing transformers
Isolation devices with separate voltage
regulators
Impedance compensation devices, such as
capacitors
Voltage Regulators
Utility step-voltage regulators

Ferroresonant transformers

Electronic tap-switching regulators

Magnetic Synthesizers
Utility Tap Changing Transformers

Figure 20: Tap Changing Transformers

Utility Step-Voltage Regulators
Ferroresonant
Transformers

Resonance and Core saturation

 This causes the current to increase to a point where it
saturates the steel core of the CVT.
At Saturation the transformer no longer transforms the
voltage or current according to the ratio of the primary
and secondary turns.
Electronic tap-switching regulators
Magnetic Synthesizers

• They use resonant circuits made of nonlinear inductors

and
capacitors to store energy
• Saturation transformers to modify the voltage waveform
• Filters to filter out harmonic distortion.
• zigzag transformer. The zigzag name
• Traps triplen harmonic currents
 Static Uninterruptible Power Sources
Main Components
Input rectifier to convert the AC voltage into DC voltage
Battery system to provide power to loads during loss of
normal power
Inverter which converts the DC voltage of the battery to an
AC voltage suitable for the load being supplied
Static UPS systems
Offline /Stand by UPS
Double Conversion Online UPS
The Line Interactive UPS
The Standby-Ferro UPS
The Delta Conversion On-Line UPS
Offline/Stand by UPS
 Offline UPS
• Loads are normally supplied from
the primary Electrical source directly
• If the primary power source fails or
falls outside preset parameters, the
power to the loads is switched to the Figure 25:Offline UPS system
batteries and the inverter
• The switching is accomplished within
half of a cycle in most UPS units
• During switching, the loads might
be subjected to transients
• Length of time depends on the
capacity of the batteries and the
amount of load Figure 26: Voltage Waveform of Offline
Double Conversion Online UPS
 Online UPS
• Power is rectified into DC power
and in turn inverted to AC power
to supply the loads
• The loads are continuously supplied
from the DC bus
• A battery system is also connected to
the DC bus of the UPS unit and kept Figure 27: Online UPS System
charged from the normal source
• When normal power fails, the DC
bus is supplied from the battery
system
Advantages:
(1) Power is normally supplied from
the DC bus, isolates the loads from the
source
(2) No switching transients are producedFigure 28: Voltage Waveform of Online
Line Interactive UPS
The Line Interactive UPS

Inverter is always connected to the

output of the UPS
Operating the inverter in reverse battery charging
When the input power fails, the transfer switch opens and
the power flows from the battery to the UPS output
With the inverter always on and connected to the output,
this design provides additional filtering and yields reduced
switching transients
Standby-Ferro UPS
Standby-Ferro UPS

Special saturating transformer that has three windings

Inverter is in the standby mode, and is energized when the
input
power fails and the transfer switch is opened
Ferro transformer itself creates severe output voltage
distortion and transients
The Delta Conversion On-Line UPS
Rotary UPS
Data centers rarely run their UPS at 100% load
Major of the UPS runs below 80% load typically 45-
55%
Fixed losses in RUPS
Power controls
Flywheels
Pony motors
Preheat engine coolant and lubrication
Friction and windage losses
Auxiliary cooling mechanisms
Static UPS with Flywheel Energy Storage
Motor Generator Battery RUPS
Engine Coupled RUPS
Application
Rotary UPS 4.3% of total world wide capacity
20kW to 200 kW : Static UPS
200kW to 500 kW : Static UPS with flywheel
500kWs to MWs : Static UPS + Rotary UPS
Rotary UPS
Multiple motors are turned on/off
Satellite stations & broadcast stations
Military installations
Comparison: Investment
RUPS
40% more investment
Auxiliary equipment
Cooling
By-pass
Climate control
Separate space
SUPS
Battery room
Maintenance
RUPS
Weekly monitoring----winding and bearing temperatures
---- Diesel engine starter battery
Monthly monitoring---Carbon brushes
---switching system
Yearly monitoring------
Environmental Impact
Noise

Carbon emissions

Battery back up: 15 minutes

Flywheel: 10 sec
Reliability

Mean Time Between Failure: MTBF

Mean Time To Repair: MTTR
DG: Failure rate 74 starts
 Voltage Tolerance Criteria
ITI Curve: Information Technology Industrial Council
Curve
A set of curves published by representing the withstand
capabilities of computers connected to power systems in
terms of magnitude and duration of the voltage
disturbance
 Voltage Tolerance Criteria
Steady-State Tolerance.
The steady-state range describes an RMS voltage that is
either slowly varying or is constant. The subject range is
±10% from the nominal voltage.
Line Voltage Swell
 This region describes a voltage swell having an RMS
amplitude up to 120% of the nominal voltage, with a
duration of up to 0.5 sec.
Low-Frequency Decaying Ring Wave.
This region describes a decaying ring wave transient that
typically results from the connection of power factor
correction capacitors to an AC power distribution system.
High-Frequency Impulse Ring Wave.
 This region describes the transients that typically occur as the
result of lightning strikes.
 The intent is to provide 80 J minimum transient immunity.
Voltage Sags.
 Sags to 80% of nominal are assumed to have a typical duration
of up to 10 sec
 Sags to 70% of nominal are assumed to have a duration of up to
0.5 sec.
Drop Out.
 Voltage drop out includes both severe RMS voltage sags and
complete interruption of the applied voltage followed by
immediate reapplication of the nominal voltage.
 The interruption may last up to 20 msec..
No Damage Region.
Prohibited Region.