A Proposal for Flicker Evaluation

Abstract

-The measured flicker levels by using the IEC standard 61000-4-15 often far exceed the established compatibility levels, even without the existence of consumer complaints. The poor measurement/complaint correlation due to the use of IEC flickermeter can be explained by two significant hypotheses. Firstly, modern lightning may be significantly less sensitive to voltage fluctuations than standard incandescent lamps upon which the entire IEC flickermeter concept is based. As a result, the luminous flux density (illuminance) variation from modern lamp bulbs is not well represented by the IEC flickermeter. Furthermore, the IEC standard 61000-4-15 is not able to detect flicker caused by high interharmonics components. In this connection, the flicker severity index measured by the IEC flickermeter to evaluate the flicker effect in modern lamp bulbs is controversial. Thus, would be the flicker planning levels and flicker requirements adequate to this scenario? This work presents a method to evaluate the flicker effect by taking into account the direct response of the illuminance variation. The test results have indicated a better correlation between measured flicker level and user complaint for all lamps tested in this study.