E TEP

Instantaneous SinwoidalandHarmonicActiveand
Deactive Currents in Three-phahasePower Systems
J. L. Willems

Abstract
In this contribution a new decomposition of sinusoidal three-phase currents is proposed, The main feature is
that it leads to the compensation of non-active currents partly by elements without energy storage and partly
by means of linear elements with energy storage (inductors and capacitors). The proposed decomposition is
compared with existing procedures, such as those developed by Akagi-Nabae and by Czarnecki. The possible
generalization of this concept to distorted voltages and currents is discussed.

1 Introduction reactive power compensation are briefly recalled first.

Consider a three-phase power system with positive-se-
In a power system delivering electrical energy to a quence voltages. The voltage phasor vector is
load the currentsconsist of a part necessary for the trans-
fer of power and another part that does not contribute to
the power transfer. The latter part causes additional loss
and is responsible for a decrease of the power factor. For
the analysis of the performance and the efficiency of the
power transmission it is therefore important to be able to
distinguishthe active and the non-active ordeactive cur-
rr = E.,I [ =
with a = &2d3. The instantaneousvoltages are given by
(1)

rent components and to design procedures for compen- (I

I-L1 145 cos(wt + q,,)
sation of the non-active current components.
To analyse the performance of the power uansmis- u (t) = lcLll-b
cos(wt + (pLI- 2x13)
sion for sinusoidal as well as distorted three-phase cur- LL1 U I
d cos(wt + (pLI + 2x13)
rents, various decompositionshave been proposed. Two
fundamentalapproachesare due to Czarnecki [4-61 and where
to Akagi et al. [l]; both decomposition techniques are
useful with respect to the analysis of overloadingdue to -u
V L I -I-LI le’9~l.
non-active current components as well as the compen- A load is connected to the power system. The load
sation of these components. can be reactive and unsymmetrical. Let the load current
An elegant method for analysing both decomposi- phasor vector be
tion procedures has been developed by F e m m and co-
authors [ 10, 121. In the present contribution the merits
and drawbacks of both decomposition techniques are
briefly discussed. On the basis of that discussion a new
decompositionprocedure is proposed for the case of si-
nusoidal three-phase currents and voltages. This new
kL3 1
technique combines interesting features from the Czar- The active power delivered to the load is given by
necki and the Akagi-Nabae decompositionprocedures;
compensation can be achieved partially by elements p, = Re(U,,lt, +U,lt* +UL,LL} (3)
without energy storage and partially by linear inductors
and capacitors.Moreover, the possible generalization of where “Re” denotes the real value and * the complex con-
the concept to the case of distorted currents and voltag- jugate of a complex number. The line losses are propor-
es is discussed. tional to the square of the rms line current:
lllIl’= ILLII?+ &’I? +llL#
where 11~Il
denotes the length of a vectorx defined by
2 Ciassical Approach to Compensation in 11x_112= x_Tx_*.
Sinusoidal Steady State
The efficiency of the power transmission may be
To be able to compare the proposed decomposition characterized by the ratio of the line losses to the active
technique to existing procedures, the classical ideas of power, or by the power factor which is equal to the ratio

ETEP Vol. 4,No. 5, September/October 1994 335

ETEP
of the active power Pa to the apparent power S. The ap-
parent power is defined by
s= ll~II.ll~ll (4)
with
It is the purpose of compensation to increase the
power factor or equivalently to reduce the transmission
loss, without altering the active power delivered to the
load.
To analyse the efficiencyof the power transmission,
in classical power system theory the current is decom-
posed into an active current component 1, and a deac-
tive current component Id.The active current is defined
as :
(5)
Lr,, J
with G = f',/ll~ll', and
I d = 1- 1,. (6)
The following properties are readily derived:
The active power corresponding to the active current
1, is equivalent to the active power corresponding to
the load current 1:
Re{U71*)=Re (U'11).
The deactive current Idcorresponds to zero active
power:
Re { U r [ i )= 0.
The line losses are proportional to
11111=
' 111_,11'+ llldll'.
Hence the line losses can be split up into a part due to
the active current and a part due to the deactive cur-
rent. Reducing the latter without altering the former
is the aim of compensation.
If an element taking the current -Id, or equivalently
delivering the current Id,is connected parallel to the
load, then the power system has to deliver only the ac-
tive current I,. The active power delivered by the
power system is unchanged. The parallel element,
called the compensating element, does not take nor
generate active power. However, the instantaneous
power delivered by the power system is changed by
the compensation.
It can be shown that the compensatingelement deliv-
ering the current Idto the load can always be realized
by means of a linear reactive element (consisting of
inductors and capacitors) [ 1.51.
Czarnecki [4-6] analyses the causes of the overload-
ing of a power line in detail; he shows that for the sit-
uation considered here the overloading current or the
deactive current corresponds to the sum of
- the reactive current L,=jBCJ (7)
with B=-Q/IIUII?
336
where Q denotes the reactive power delivered to
the load
- the unsymmetrical current which could be split up
further into the negative-sequenceand the zero-se-
quence currents.
Note that Czarnecki considers more general situa-
tions than the cases analyzed in the present discus-
sion, namely problems with distorted voltages and
currents.
The active power considered above corresponds to
the average real power. The active current 1, is hence a
current which yields the same average power as the load
current. It is the current with the smallest rms value hav-
ing this property, and hence it realizes the smallest line
losses and the largest power factor. Note that 1, and 1,
correspond to the projection of the current vector 1
along U and j P , respectively. This interpretation is
interesting for the comparison with results discussed in
later sections.
3 Akagi-Nabae's Current Decomposition
The classical approach to deactive current compen-
sation, as discussed in the previous section, requires
compensating elements with energy storage, since the
instantaneous power correspondingto the active current
vector 1, is different from the instantaneous power cor-
responding to the load current vectorl. Although the de-
active current corresponds to zero active (or average)
power, the associated instantaneouspower does not van-
ish. Parallel capacitors and/or inductors, used as com-
pensating elements, realize the storage of electrical en-
ergy; the average power delivered is zero.
One may wonder if (partial) compensation, that is
reduction of the rms deactive line currents and corre-
sponding line losses, is possible without energy storage.
This may be desirable for economical and/or technical
reasons [3,9]. To analyse this question, Akagi et al. [ 11
introduced new concepts, the instantaneous active
power and the instantaneous reactive power, and corre-
sponding currents, to see which current components can
be compensated without affecting the instantaneous
power. Such compensation (corresponding to current
and loss reduction) can be achieved by means of (power
electronic) elements without energy storage.
In particular for three-phasenetworks, the current is
split up into the instantaneousactive currentip(t)and the
instantaneous deactive Current i,(t), such that [ 1,2, 101:
+
i ( t ) = ip(t) i,(t),
u (t)Ti(t)= u (t)TiP(t),
u ( t f i & ) = 0.
Moreover the decomposition should be such that
the current component i , ( t ) is the smallest current hav-
ing these properties. Actually Akagi and coauthors use
the terminology "instantaneous reactive current". Here
the terminology has slightly been changed to avoid con-
fusion with the concept of reactive current in the sinu-
soidal situation.
ETEP Vol. 4.No. 5, September/October 1994

The analysis of the problem yields the following re-
sults [7,8,13. 14, 161:
- i , ( t ) is the orthogonal projection of the vectori(t) on
the vector u ( t ) ,
- i,(r) is the component of the vectori(f)orthogonal to
the vector u(r).
Explicitly:
Note that
IIi(t)II’= IIi,(r)tI’ +IIi,(t)f. (9)
The current component i, can be annihilated by a
parallel compensating element which not only does not
require energy but also no energy storage. The compen-
sating element should deliver the current i,. It reduces
the line current and the line losses as much as it is pos-
sible by means of non-active elements without energy
storage.
A further decomposition is possible
i , ( f ) = i,(r) + ipl(r) (10)
where i , ( t ) is the active current vector corresponding to
the phasor 1, discussed in the previous section. The cur-
rent i*(r) is the component in the instantaneous active
current which corresponds to non-zero instantaneous ac-
tive power but to zero average active power. One readi-
ly checks
where T denotes the period. Hence the rms current and
the average line loss can further be reduced by compen-
sating i @ ( t ) :this obviously requires elements with ener-
gy storage.
An important feature which however has not been
emphasized in the literature is that sinusoidal u ( t ) and
i(t) do not necessarily lead to sinusoidal i9(r)and i , ( t ) ,
ascanbeclearly seenfromeq. (8).Thus,ifr,(t)andi,(t)
are non-sinusoidal, the compensation of i, (f) necessar-
ily requires (power electronic) non-linear elements, and
introduces harmonics in the line current. Also, and this
is probably more important, the compensation of the
current i,,,,(f), requiring elements with energy storage,
cannot be realized by means of linear inductors and ca-
pacitors.
This observation can readily be illustrated by means
of a simple example. Let the voltage and the load current
be given by
ETEP Vol. 4. No. 5 , SrptembedOctober 1994
ETEP
For this example one obtains
i
!
I191u‘7[1-cos(2ot)] cos(ot)
i, (f)= p’(dqcos(wt+2x/3)-cos(2wt) cos(or-2x/3)] .
lj*1&[cos (wt-2x~)-cos(2wr)cos ( o r + 2 x ~ ) ]
One readily checks
u (t)Ti,(r>= 0.
The currents i , ( t ) and i , ( r ) are clearly non-sinu-
soidal.
The above discussion and the example clearly show
that on the one hand the compensation of the instantane-
ous deactive current has the advantage of only requiring
elements without energy storage. However, it has the
drawback of introducing harmonics; moreover, the ad-
ditional compensation of the deactive current contained
in the instantaneous active current is not possible by
means of (linear) inductors and capacitors. In the next
section it is therefore discussed which sinusoiduf deac-
tive current can be compensated using elements without
energy storage.
4 New Decomposition Technique
From the discussion of the previous section the
question arises which is the largest sinusoidal current
(part of the instantaneous deactive current) that can be
compensated by elements without energy storage. Then
the remaining part of the deactive current is sinusoidal
and can be compensated by means of linear inductive
and capacitive elements [ 151 which obviously require
energy storage. This leads to the following problem
statement [ 181: find a decomposition of the current
i ( t ) = i,(t) + iqs(t) (11)
with the following properties:
- The currents i , ( f ) and i,(t) are sinusoidal. Let the
corresponding phasors be denoted as Ipsand I,.
- The instantaneous power corresponding to i, (t) must
be zero for all t:
u (t)riqs(r) = 0.
- From all decompositions satisfying the two conditions
above, that one should be selected for which the current
ip,(r) is as small as possible. A measure for this is the
rms value of i, ( r ) or equivalently the magnitude of 1,.
In other words. one wants to determine the maximal
current or line loss reduction which can be realized with-
337
E TEP
out energy storage. but also without destroying the sinu-
soidal character of the line current.
The instantaneous power corresponding to sinu-
soidal voltage andcurrent vectorsu (t) andi(t), with cor-
responding phasorsJ L and 1,is given by
p ( t )= u(t)'i(t) = A + Bcos(2wr + p).
It consists of a constant component
A = Re (U'r)
equal to the active power, and an oscillating component
[ 171:
~ c o( s2 0 1+ #3) = I U ' ~I cos[ 2ur + arg ( Q'L)I.
Hence the instantaneous powers corresponding to
the voltage u (t) and the load current i (t) on the one hand,
and to the same voltage and the current i'(t), with pha-
sot I', on the other hand, are equal if and only if
where "Im" denotes the imaginary pan. The second ex-
pression can also be written as
Re { u'f ) = Re [ U'l'*).
The third expression is equivalent with
Re (-jU'l) =Re {-j&!'l')
or
Let the phasor vectors be considered as elements of
a vector space with three complex entries where the
internal product of two vectors x and y is defined as
Re { x r y * )The
. above relations express that the currents
landf'correspond to the same instantaneouspowerwith
the voltage U if the internal products of 1 with U , andu
jLf are respectively the same as the internal products of
l'with 111, L f andj L f .This leads to the geometrical tech-
nique expressed in the lemmabelow, which is used in the
next two sections to derive the current 1,.
Lemma 1: Thephasorl, of the smallestsinusoidal cur-
rent which yields the same instantaneouspower as 1for
a voltage 11 is given by the projection of I on the sub-
space spanned by the vectors p,_V* and jug.
The sinusoidal currentsi,(r) andi,(t) with the pha-
sorsI,andI,,=I-&,,arerespectivelycalledtheinsran-
taneous sinusoidal active current and the instantaneous
sinusoidal deactive current, in contrast with the instan-
taneous active current and the instantaneous deactive
current, as defined by Akagi-Nabae [ 11.
With these concepts compensation can be realized
as follows. The current iqs(t) is compensated by an ele-
ment without energy storage; the current i p ( t )is funher
reduced to i.0) by means of linear elements with ener-
gy storage (capacitors andor inductors). The currents
satisfy
338
The currents I, and are orthogonal in the mean
square sense. The expression above shows how much re-
duction of the line current and the losses is possible by
compensation of IqSand of I , - -Iqs.
5 Balanced Power System Voltages
If the three-phasevoltages are balanced, as in eq. ( l),
the computation of the current Ipsfrom the geometrical
interpretation in Lemma 1 is simplified, because the
three phasors U ,If and j u are mutually orthogonal.
The current Ips is given by
It is readily checked that 1, corresponds to the same
instantaneous power as the current I or the current I,.
Only the first component is necessary for the average
power; it equals the active current I,. The second com-
ponent ofl, corresponds to zero average power, but it
is necessary for realizing the oscillating term in the
power between source and load. It can readily be
checked that the instantaneouspower corresponding to
1q\ =I - l p
is zero at all time.
For the case considered in the present section, the
current components -Ip and lqs can easily be expressed
using the positive-sequence, negative-sequence, and
zero-sequence components of the load current. Let this
decomposition for the load current phasor be:
I=-II+ 1 2 + 1 0 .
Moreover let 1 be decomposedinto an active and a
reactive component, or otherwise stated an in-phase and
a quadrature component with respect to the voltage U :
I1 = I l a + 1 l r .
Then it is clear that
11/112=11~,,112+11~~,112+ 1112112+ Il~o112.
The powers corresponding to these current compo-
nents are as follows:
- Ilacorresponds to a constant instantaneous power. It
is the same as the current 1, discussed previously.
- I 2 corresponds to an oscillating instantaneous
power component with zero average value. It is
equal to I ps - I,.
- flrand l o correspond to zero instantaneous active
power. Their sum equals I,+.
Hence the compensator without energy storage,
which minimizes the line loss while taking a sinusoidal
current, is the compensator which delivers the positive-
ETEP Vol. 4, No. 5, Septernber/October 1994

sequence reactive load current and the zero-sequence
load current. Summarizing one concludes that. if com-
pensation is restricted to sinusoidal currents, the load
current should be split up as follows:
The urtive current 1, or I lu: This is the minimal cur-
rent corresponding to the active power delivered to
the load.
The negative-sequence current i2:This current does
not contribute to average active power transfer; it
does however contribute to instantaneous active
power transfer. This current component can be com-
pensated by elements with energy storage, in partic-
ular by means of linear inductors and capacitors.
The reactive positive-sequence current I,, and the
zero-sequence current I,: These current compo-
nents do not contribute to instantaneous active
power transfer. These currents can be compensated
by inductors and capacitors, but also by means of
elements without energy storage.
The sum of the currents a)and B) is the instantane-
ous sinusoidal active current Ip. The sum of the current
components y) is the instantaneous sinusoidal reactive
current l,,,.
The relation of the new components with Akagi-
Nubae’s components [ 1 ] is as follows. Component a)is
part of Akagi-Nnbue’s instantaneous active current
while the components y) are part of Akagi-Nabae’s in-
stantaneous deactive current. The distinction lies in
m,
component which in Akugi-Nabae’s theory is divid-
ed up into an active and a deactive part. Because of the
requirement of sinusoidal currents this component p) is
completely included in the instantaneous sinusoidal ac-
tive current.
It is instructive to compare also the new decompo-
sition with the decomposition procedure proposed by
Cxrnecki [4, 51. This author distinguishes the follow-
ing components for three-phase systems in sinusoidal
steady state:
I. the active current,
11. the reactive current,
111. the unsymmetrical current.
To see the relationship with the current compo-
nents defined in the present paper, the unsymmetrical
current should be further split up into a negative-se-
quence and a zero-sequence component. Component 1.
corresponds to a).The negative-sequence part of III.
corresponds to /3). The zero-sequence part of 111. to-
gether with 11. correspond to y).
To illustrate the results consider the compensation
of a single-phase resistive load connected between two
phases of a three-phase power system with balanced
positive-sequence voltages [ 151.In thiscase thedeactive
current is purely negative sequence. The instantaneous
sinusoidal deactive current is zero for this case. If only
compensation by means of sinusoidal currents is consid-
ered. then partial compensation by means of elements
without energy storage is not possible.
As a second illustrative example consider a symmet-
rical reactive load connected to a three-phase power
ETEP Vol. 4. No. 5 . SeptembedOctober 1994
ETEP
system with balanced positive-sequence voltages [3.91.
In this case the instantaneous sinusoidaldeactive current
coincides with the instantaneous deactive current, as de-
fined by Akagi-Nabae [I]. Indeed the instantaneous de-
active current is a positive-sequence reactive current. In
this case all deactive current compensation is realizable
by elements without energy storage.
6 Unbalanced Power System Voltages
If the three-phase voltages are not balanced, the
computation of the current 1, from the geometrical
interpretation of Lemma 1is more complicated;the rea-
son is that Cr is not orthogonal to U*orj U*,
although the
latter two vectors are still mutually orthogonal. The re-
sulting expression of the current Ips:
I, = aL!-+ Pcr (18)
with
and
The cases where the denominator of a vanishes
should be excluded. These cases do not occur in practi-
cal situations. Mathematically they correspond to cases
where the three vectors U , and jg are not linearly
independent. The expression of Ipsreduces to eq. ( 16)if
the voltages are balanced. The analytical expressions of
the instantaneous sinusoidal active and reactive currents
can be much simplified in the practically important par-
ticular case that the voltage and current vectors do not
contain zero-sequence components:
-
U=iJ++U-
I = 1’ -+ 1-
with
u+=[I a’ a ] T U , ,
u-=[ 1 a a2]Tfi*,
I+= [ 1 a2 a ] T ‘ l , ,
I-=[ I a a’]Q2.
It can readily be shown that in this case the instanta-
neous sinusoidal deactive current
Iqs=I-lps
is the projection of the current vector I on the vector
j(u+- U-). This yields a particularly simple expression
of this current:
or
339
ETEP
This expression was derived independently by Prof.
Depenbrock (private communication).Hence
A+ A-
-Iqs- - v -Ic -(u+-u-),
2 J -
3(1ai' +k21)
with Q+and @denoting the reactive powers correspond-
ing respectively to the vectors of the positive-sequence
voltages and currents, and to the vectors of the negative-
sequence voltages and currents. For the case of balanced
voltages this reduces to the current 1I r ;this corresponds
to the result obtained in the previous section. Note that
the instantaneous sinusoidal deactive current contains
positive- and negative-sequence components;they have
the same ratio as the correspondingvoltage components.
The current components are in quadrature with the cor-
responding voltage Component; the phase differences of
90" for both components have opposite signs.
It would be interesting to analyse the relationship
between the current decomposition technique obtained
above and the decomposition procedures proposed by
Czarnecki [4,5] and by Ferrero and co-authors [ lo]. The
expression of -Iq, shows that the compensation of the in-
stantaneous sinusoidal deactive current does not aim at
annihilatingor reducing the reactive power Q++ but c,
rather at annihilatingthe difference Q+- @; this supports
the reservation against the generalization of the concept
of reactive power to non-standard situations (asymmet-
rical currents and/or voltages, distorted voltages and cur-
rents). The difference between the reactive powers cor-
responding to the positive- and the negative-sequence
componentsalso shows up in Ferrero's papers [I I] in the
expression of the average value of the imaginq Park
power; the above analysis leads hence to a physical inter-
pretation of that average value. If the current contains
zero-sequence components, but the voltage does not,
then the zero-sequence current components are included
in the sinusoidal instantaneous deactive current.
7 Remarks
- For balanced voltages the sinusoidal instantaneous
deactive current can be computed from the instanta-
neous reactive power defined by A h g i [ 1,2] in the
same way as the instantaneous reactive current, by
only considering the constant term in the instantane-
ous reactive power. This is however not true for un-
balanced power system voltages.
- To derive the instantaneous sinusoidal deactive cur-
rent one could conjecture the following algorithm:
compute the instantaneous deactive current accord-
ing to Akagi-Nubue's procedure. and take the funda-
mental frequency component of this current as the in-
stantaneous sinusoidal deactive current. It is impor-
tant to realize that this is not a correct way of getting
the instantaneous sinusoidal deactive current which
340
could be Compensated by elements without energy
storage. Although Akagi-Nabae's deactive current
corresponds to zero instantaneous power, in general.
even for sinusoidal voltages, the fundamental fre-
quency component of Akagi-Nabae's deactive cur-
rent does not correspondto zero instantaneouspower:
hence it cannot be compensated by elements without
energy storage. This is readily seen from the example
considered in Section 3. The fundamental frequency
component of the instantaneousdeactive current de-
rived for that example is:
i 1
' 45 [cos(wt)]/2
111
iqf(t)= IJ'I&[cos(ut + 2 ~ / 3 ) ] / 2.
/L'l f i [cosrwt - 2n/3)]/2
It is readily checked that, although i , ( t ) is orthogonal
to u ( t ) , the same is not true for the current iqf(t).
In relation with the problem considered in this paper,
the opinion of experts in power electronics would be
welcome on the following questions:
- Is it interesting from a practical point of view to
compensate separately deactive currents which
correspond to zero instantaneous power?
Is it advantageous to require these currents to be si-
nusoidal, such that the compensationof the remain-
ing part of the deactive currents can be realized by
means of linear inductive or capacitive elements?
If the answers to these questions are affirmative, it is
interesting to try to generalize the decomposition
technique of the present paper to the case of distorted
voltages and/or currents. Some ideas are discussed in
the next section.
Distorted Voltages and Currents
In the present section it is tried to generalizethe con-
cepts of instantaneous sinusoidal active and deactive
currents to the case of distorted voltages and currents.
Assume that the current waveform does not contain any
harmonic order which is not present in the voltage wave-
form; this is a reasonable assumption since the analysis
is aimed at the linearity of the cornpensation technique.
A possible concept generalizing the instantaneous sinu-
soidal active current could be the instantaneous har-
monic active current iph(t)defined as follows:
The currentiph(t)correspondsto the same instantane-
ous power as the load current i ( t ) :
u (t)Ti*(t)= u ( t > 5 ( r ) .
Hence the instantaneous harmonic deactive current
iqh= i ( r )- i p h ( t corresponds
) to zero instantaneous
power.
The current waveform iph(t) does not contain har-
monic orders which are not present in the voltage
waveform.
Among all currents satisfying the above two condi-
tions i p l , ( f )is the one with the smallest rms value.
ETEP Vol. 4.No. 5 , SepternbdOctober 1994

It is clear that for the sinusoidal case this decompo-
sition corresponds to the decomposition considered in
Section 4.
The concreteexpression of these conditionsin terms
of the data corresponding to the waveforms of the volt-
age and the current is rather complex. One of the reasons
is that the instantaneous power contains sinusoidal fluc-
tuations of various frequencies; each frequency can cor-
respond to different harmonic orders of the voltage and
the current. Therefore conditions are required between
the voltage and currentcomponentsof different harmon-
ic orders to have zero instantaneouspower to correspond
to a current waveform and a voltage waveform. As an
example consider the voltage vector
u 0 )= U I (0 + W ) UI=U;+U;,
containing first and fifth harmonics:
A cos(or + 2x13)
ETEP
lrsJ
on a subspace in the space of the vectors with six com-
plex elements. This example shows that this approach
leads to a complex procedure if the number of harmon-
ic orders is relatively high.
In the particular, but practically most important
case that voltages and currents do not contain zero-se-
quence components, the solution can be expressed very
similarly to the results obtained in Section 6. Let the
p h a s o r v e c t o r s ~ I , U s andL5beexpressedas
,~I thesum
of positive-sequence, and negative-sequence compo-
nents:
us = u;+ us,
LI =[;+IT, Is = I ; +I:.
Then the phasors of the first and fifth harmonic com-
ponents of the instantaneousharmonic deactive current
',i are obtained as the projection of the vector

B cos (5wr)

B C O S ( ~-U
2x13)
~ on the vector

Then a current containing first and fifth harmonics

C sin (ax)
and hence
Csin(wr +2x/3)

D sin (5wr)

Dsin(5wt - 2x13)
corresponds to zero instantaneous power provided
AD + B C = 0. This result can readily be extended to the general
To see how the currents iphand iqhcould be derived case with an arbitrary number of harmonic compo-
in general, an example is considered where the wave- nents. The numerator of the multiplier is the differ-
forms of the voltage and the current contain fundamen- ence between the positive-sequence reactive powers
tal frequency components as well as fifth harmonics. Let and the negative-sequence reactive powers. The de-
the correspondingphasor vectors be denoted by U I, L I, nominator equals the square of the rms value of the
u5,15,and the phasor vectors of the first and fifth har- voltage. As in Section 6 the question arises whether
monic components of i p h ( f ) by d, and J 5 .Then the vec-
these components i p h ( t and) iqh(r) have a meaning in
tors J I and J 5 should be chosen such that the current decompositionsproposed by Czarnecki [ 5 ]
or by Ferrero [ 6 ] .
llJl 112 + llJ# Here also remarks on the relation to the definitionof
is as small as possible, with the following constraints reactive power and in particular to Eudeunu's definition
are relevant as in Section 6. The aim of the compensa-
Re I Y :I; + U TI; I = Re { K TJ; + U,',f;I. (19) tion of the instantaneous harmonic deactive current
IU:~JI= lU,'s5I7 (20) i q h ( fis) hence to annihilate the difference between the
reactive powers for the positive-sequence and the nega-
Iv :r v
I I= I fJI I, (21) tive-sequence components; this quantity also shows up
in the papers by Ferrero et al. [ 1I ] in the expression of
IUT1; + U;rLI I = lUT& + U?-_JI I. (22) the average value of the imaginary Park power; eq. (24)
1 V f ~ +s U:LI I = IY :J j + UTJ I 1. (23) hence leads to a physical interpretation of that average
value. Note finally that if there are no zero-sequence
These conditions lead to the conclusion, similar to voltage components, the zero-sequence current compo-
the result of Lemma 1. thatdl andJ5 can be obtained as nents should be included completely in the instantane-
the orthogonal projection of the vector ous harmonic deactive current.

ETEP Vol. 4. No. 5, SeptembdOctober 1994 34 I

ETEP
9 Conclusion [J] Czrnecki, L S.: Orthogonal decomposition of the cur-
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342. ETEP Vol. 4. No. 5. September/October I994