This paper deals with the topic of power quality in a local distribution grid. It is aimed to analyze the individual influences, which aggravate the power quality of the distribution grid. Based on the analysis, the most adverse effects were determined, and they were the voltage drops and supply voltage interruptions, supply voltage unbalance, load power factor, and also higher harmonics. These influences cause the technical losses in a distribution grid, which subsequently have a financial impact not only on the distribution, but also on the transmission of electricity. Only the load voltage unbalance, the load power factor, and the higher harmonics, which mainly cause the technical losses, were analyzed in this paper. The measurement of the influences of the adverse effects was performed on the model of a 22-kV distribution grid. The measurement was performed on the basis of three types of power line conductors and their different lengths, three types of active power consumption, and the different values of these adverse effects. According to this measurement, a simulation in program Matlab-Simulink was created. This simulation represented part of a 22-kV distribution grid, which was influenced by the abovementioned adverse effects. The results of the measurements were compared with the results of the simulation. Based on the evaluation of the technical losses from the measurement and the simulation, the financial losses during a certain period were calculated for the distribution system operators.
This article deals with the assessment of the reliability of sensitive equipment due to voltage sags. The most frequent problems of power quality are voltage sags. Equipment that cannot withstand short-term voltage sag is defined as sensitive device. Sensitivity of such equipment can be described by the voltage-tolerance curves. A device (generator) to generate voltage sags (also interruptions) with duration at least 1 ms has been designed and developed for this purpose. Equipment sensitive to voltage sags was tested using this generator. Overall, five types of sensitive equipment were tested: personal computers, fluorescent lamps, drives with speed control, programmable logic controllers, and contactors. The measured sensitivity curves of these devices have been used to determine the number of trips (failures) due to voltage sags. Two probabilistic methods (general probability method and cumulative probability method) to determine probability of equipment failure occurrence are used. These methods were applied to real node in the distribution system with its actual performance of voltage sags/swells. The calculations also contain different levels of sensitivity of the sensitive equipment.
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