This paper examines the random nature of interharmonics generated by power converters connected to sustainable energy sources and loads, such as wind turbines, photovoltaic (PV) panels, and electric vehicles (EVs). Current research often overlooks the stochastic behavior of interharmonics and their impact on power system reliability and resilience, leading to gaps in effective modeling and mitigation strategies. Thus, this study examines a low-voltage installation with a PV panel, an EV and a microwave operating simultaneously, providing practical insights into real-world scenarios of interharmonic related disruptions and solutions for enhancing the reliability and resilience of sustainable energy grids. By leveraging real-time measurements of interharmonics, suitable probability distribution functions (PDFs) are initialized to develop a probabilistic model using Monte Carlo simulation. This enables the derivation of a time-domain aggregation model of interharmonics from multiple sources operating together at the point of common coupling (PCC). The findings reveal that the peak values of voltage or current fluctuations at the PCC are influenced by the randomness in the number of devices connected and the frequency components originating from different sources. Through multiple case studies, the dependency of these fluctuations on stochastic parameters is systematically established. Empirical relationships are formulated to predict aggregated interharmonic values under varying scenarios, enhancing the accuracy and applicability of the model. The results demonstrate that higher interharmonic frequencies and fewer randomly connected devices significantly increase the probability of elevated aggregated peak values. These insights can serve as benchmarks for grid operators and policymakers in mitigating interharmonic related issues in modern power systems.

The journey towards sustainable transportation has significantly increased the grid penetration of electric vehicles (EV) around the world. The connection of EVs to the power grid poses a series of new challenges for network operators, such as network loading, voltage profile perturbation, voltage unbalance, and other power quality issues. This paper presents a coalescence of knowledge on the impact that electro-mobility can impose on the grid, and identifies gaps for further research. Further, the study investigates the impact of electric vehicle charging on the medium-voltage network and low-voltage distribution network, keeping in mind the role of network operators, utilities, and customers. From this, the impacts, challenges, and recommendations are summarized. This paper will be a valuable resource to research entities, industry professionals, and network operators, as a ready reference of all possible power quality challenges posed by electro-mobility on the distribution network.

Light-emitting diode (LED) lighting has, compared to other types of lighting, a significantly lower energy consumption. However, the perceived service life is also important for customer satisfaction and here there is a discrepancy between customers’ experience and manufacturers’ statements. Many customers experience a significantly shorter service life than claimed by the manufacturers. An experiment was carried out in the Pehr Högström Laboratory at Luleå University of Technology in Skellefteå, Sweden to investigate whether voltage disturbances could explain this discrepancy. Over 1000 LED lamps were exposed to high levels of voltage disturbances for more than 6000 h; the failure rate from this experiment was similar to the one from previous experiments in which lamps were exposed to normal voltage. The discrepancy thus remains, even though some possible explanations have emerged from the project’s results. The lamps were exposed to five different types of voltage disturbances: short interruptions; transients; overvoltage; undervoltage; and harmonics. Only overvoltage resulted in failure of the lamps, and only for a single topology of lamp. A detailed analysis has been made of the topology of lamps that failed. This lamp type contains a different internal electronics circuit than the other lamp types. Failures of the lamps when exposed to overvoltage are due to the heat development in the control circuit increasing sharply when the lamps are exposed to a higher voltage. Hence, it is concluded that there are lamps that are significantly more sensitive to voltage disturbances than other lamp types. Manufactures need to consider the voltage quality that can be expected at the terminal of the lamp to prevent failure of lamps due to voltage disturbances. This paper therefore contains recommendations for manufacturers of lighting; the recommendations describe which voltage disturbances lamps should cope with.

Supraharmonics (SH) have proliferated in low-voltage (LV) and medium-voltage (MV) grids due to the increasing use of technologies emitting distortion in the range 2–150 kHz. Currently, no recommended practices to assess the effects of SH on the electrical system exist. The propagation of SH through LV and MV grids leads to interference with the elements for power delivery and end-user equipment, e.g., light flicker, aging of capacitors and cable terminations, audible noise, and interruption of electric vehicle (EV) charging. As such incidents happen more often, the need for guidelines that facilitate the diagnosis of problems related to SH arises. Different features of the SH distortion are responsible for different interferences. This article introduces guidelines for the evaluation of the impact of SH based on the morphology of the interference. The evaluation is performed with easy-to-use methods and formulas directly related to the characteristics of the SH distortion. The adverse effects of SH considered are audible noise, light flicker, tripping of LV residual current devices (RCDs), and MV cable termination failure. This work interests field engineers and researchers facing problems related to SH; it also serves as a guide for further research.

Power converters with high switching frequency used to integrate renewable power sources to medium and low voltage networks are sources of emission in the supraharmonic range (2 to 150 kHz). When such converters are connected to a medium voltage (MV) network these supraharmonics propagate through the MV network and can impact network and customer equipment over a wide range. This paper evaluates an existing Swedish MV electrical network and studies the pattern of supraharmonic resonance and the propagation of supraharmonics. The MV network consists of eight feeders including a small wind farm. Simulations reveal that, the bigger the MV network, the more resonant frequencies, but also the lower the amplitude of the resonance peaks in the driving point impedance. It was also identified that for short feeders as length increases, the magnitude of the transfer impedance at supraharmonic frequency decreases. For further increment in feeder length, the magnitude increases or becomes almost constant. For very long feeders, the transfer impedance further starts decreasing. The eight feeders in the network under study are similar but show completely different impedance versus frequency characteristics. Measurements at the MV side of the wind farm show time varying emissions in the supraharmonic range during low power production. The impact of these emissions coupled with system resonance is examined.

This report summarizes the situation with knowledge and challenges regarding the large-scale introduction of electromobility in the Swedish power grid. 

The content covers a range of systemic perspectives in terms of challenges and impacts that the fast-growing amount of charging associated with electromobility poses to the actual power system. From this, several important questions are addressed in order to predict the future positive and negative impacts of this.

The focus is placed on the possible impacts on the low and medium voltage networks, mainly exploring the power quality issues and grid hosting capacity. The following power quality issues are addressed: RMS voltage (slow voltage variation, overvoltage, undervoltage, fast voltage variations), unbalance, waveform distortion (harmonics, interharmonics, and supraharmonics), and power system stability. The hosting capacity is examined to predict whether the charging demand from electromobility can be accommodated in the existing power system considering the involved challenges.

Furthermore, the aspect related to the charging process and people’s traveling patterns under a stochastic point of view is analysed. With the advantages that electromobility brings, it is noticeable that people will change the way they move around. Insights from this perspective make it possible to predict how the grid needs to change to accommodate future needs.

From the found evidence in this report, it is noticed that the harmonic content of the current injected from electric vehicle charging is not negligible, though its magnitude is low it may get aggregated with harmonics produced by other connected loads in the low voltage network. Additionally, the results from leakage current (due to supraharmonics) in protective earth, light flicker and voltage dip studies show potential issues due to the charging process. Further, this study determines the hosting capacity of EVs based on the PV – EV integration, dynamic line rating, curtailment (hr/yr) of large rated electric vehicles and temperature. The hosting capacity studies estimated a significant surplus capacity for EV penetration under the present grid condition in Sweden. But considering a certain level of risk especially during winters proper planning is required. Other evidence from this report provides additional support for future discussions and debates regarding the impacts of electromobility on the electrical system.

Bearing is one of the most crucial parts in induction motor (IM) as a result there is a constant call for effective diagnosis of bearing faults for reliable operation. Infrared thermography (IRT) is appreciably used as a non-destructive and non-contact method to detect the bearing defects in a rotary machine. However, its performance is limited by insignificant information and string noise present in the infrared thermal image. To address this issue, an emergent two dimensional discrete wavelet transform (2D-DWT) based IRT method has been proposed in this article for diagnosing the different bearing faults in IM, namely, inner and outer race defects, and lack of lubrication. The dimensionality of the extracted features was reduced using principal component analysis (PCA) and thereafter the selected features were ranked in the order of most relevant features using the Mahalanobis distance (MD) method to achieve the optimal feature set. Finally these selected features have been passed to the complex decision tree (CDT), linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and support vector machine (SVM) for fault classification and performance evaluation. The classification results reveal that the SVM outperformed CDT and LDA. The proposed strategy can be used for self-adaptive recognition of bearing faults in IM which helps to avoid the unplanned and unwanted system shutdowns due to the bearing failure. © 2001-2012 IEEE.

This report summarizes the situation with knowledge and challenges regarding the large-scale introduction of electromobility in the Swedish power grid. 

The content convers a range of systemic perspectives in terms of challenges and impacts that the fast-growing amount of charging associated with electromobility poses to the actual power system. From this, several important questions are addressed in order to predict the future positive and negative impacts of this.

A description of electromobility in technological terms is given by presenting various configurations of electric vehicles, charging infrastructure and energy supply. 

The focus is placed on the possible impacts on the low-voltage networks, mainly exploring the power quality issues and grid hosting capacity. The following power quality issues are addressed: rms voltage (slow voltage variation, overvoltage, undervoltage, fast voltage variations), unbalance, waveform distortion (harmonics, interharmonics, and supraharmonics), and power system stability. The hosting capacity is examined to predict whether the charging demand from electromobility can be accommodated in the existing power system considering the involved challenges.

Furthermore, the aspect related to the charging process and people’s travelling patterns under a stochastic point of view is analyzed. With the advantages that electromobility brings, it is noticeable that people will change the way they move around. Insights from this perspective make it possible to predict how the grid needs to change to accommodate the future needs.

From the found evidences in this report, it is noticed that the harmonic content of the current injected from electric vehicles charging is not negligible, but it is low in relation to the harmonics produced by other connected loads in the low voltage network. The biggest impact is on the rms voltage, which might drop and exceed the limits set by standards if a charging management is not available. Additionally, interharmonics results have shown to be a potential issue due the charging process. Other evidences from this report provides additional support for future discussions and debates regarding the impacts of electromobility on the electrical system.