POWER QUALITY PROBLEMS CREATED BY
DRIVES AND PQ IMPACT ON DRIVES
ABSTRACT
Recent advances in the field of power electronics have led
to a growth in the number and diversity of harmonic
producing loads. This has prompted the need for more
accurate models for power system components in order to
accurately predict harmonic distortion resulting from the
installation of waveform distorting loads. In particular, the
power system planners are concerned with the
determination of resonant frequencies. Power quality is an
important concern in today’s power system. The
performance and the life of the load depends a lot on the
quality of power supplied to them. . The ever-expanding
application of power electronics loads and the increasing
dependency upon information processing systems have
produced serious concerns about power quality (PQ). The
term Power quality broadly refers to maintaining the near
sinusoidal waveform of bus voltages at rated voltage
magnitude and frequency. . This paper it provides a
description of problems related to power quality created by
the drives. This Paper is concerned with modelling of
various
system components and harmonic analysis
KEYWORDS —
Power Quality, Variable frequency AC drives, Controlled
Rectifiers, Uncontrolled Rectifiers, Switch mode power
supplies, Radio frequency interference
I. INTRODUCTION
Power Quality has become an important topic judging from
the frequency of problems experienced by the end users.
The chief reason for this emergence is the increase in the
use of sensitive end-use equipment . The major source of
problems
with power quality at the customer site is the arc welding
devices. The next group consists of uninterruptible power
supply (UPS) systems, variable speed DC and AC drives,
etc. These equipment draw large amount of harmonic
currents from the supply causing distortion of the voltage
and overheating of the transmission system. In addition,
they draw currents at low power factor. Various types of
rectifiers used in these equipment mostly create the
problems. In addition, the quality of utility power affects the
performance of these power electronics equipment Electric
Power quality is a term which has captured increasing
attention in power engineering in the recent years. Even
though this subject has always been of interest to power
rectifiers ,it has assumed considerable interest in the
1990's. Electric power quality means different things for
different people. To most electric power engineers, the term
refers to a certain sufficiently high grade of electric service
but beyond that there is no universal agreement. The
measure of power quality depends upon the needs of the
equipment that is being supplied. What is good power
quality for an electric motor may not be good enough for a
personal computer. Usually the term power quality refers to
maintaining a sinusoidal waveform of bus voltages at rated
voltage and frequency. The waveform of electric power at
generation stage is purely sinusoidal and free from any
distortion. Many of the Power conversion and consumption
equipment are also designed to function under pure
sinusoidal voltage waveforms. However, there are many
devices that distort the waveform. These distortions may
propagate all over the electrical network. In recent years,
there has been an increased use of non-linear loads which
has resulted in an increased fraction of non-sinusoidal
currents and voltages in Electric Network. Classification of
power quality areas may be made according to the source of
the problem such as converters, magnetic circuit non
linearity, arc furnace or by the wave shape of the signal
such as harmonics, flicker or by the frequency spectrum
(radio frequency interference).
II. RECTIFIERS
Rectifiers convert the AC supply into DC voltage source for
either directly connecting to loads such as heater coils,
furnaces, DC motors, etc., or for further conversion as in the
case of UPS systems, variable frequency AC drives (VFD),
switched mode power supplies (SMPSs), induction heating
inverters, etc. Basically there are two types of rectifiers
called uncontrolled rectifiers and controlled rectifiers. Most
power electronics equipment including Drives use rectifiers
at the input.
 1.1 UNCONTROLLED RECTIFIERS is the 5th. In this case, the currents are balanced and there is
no neutral current problem.
Uncontrolled rectifiers are connected directly to a DC
smoothing capacitor. Uncontrolled rectifiers are used as
front -end converters in SMPSs, VFDs, DC power supplies,
and some UPSs. The circuit diagram of single phase
uncontrolled rectifier is shown in fig. 2.1.

In practical circuits of both above categories, the

predominant harmonic component could be as high as 75%
of the fundamental component. The fundamental
component of the input current would be almost in phase
Fig. 2.2 shows its input voltage and current waveforms. It with the respective phase voltage. Thus the apparent input
can be seen that the input current waveform contains large power factor is close to unity
amount of 3rd harmonic component. The actual magnitude
of this component of current would depend on the output
capacitance value, the load current and the input line
inductance .One major problem encountered while using
single phase uncontrolled rectifiers distributed in all the
three phases is the large amount of neutral current drawn in
spite of the loads being balanced .This happens because the
pulse width of current wave is narrow and the instantaneous
values of line currents do not add up to zero.

2.2 CONTROLLED RECTIFIERS

Controlled rectifiers are used in variable speed DC drives

DC power plants, induction heating and welding furnace
control, etc.

Fig 2.3 shows the circuit diagram of a three phase

uncontrolled rectifier. It consists of six diodes connected in
bridge configuration. Fig 2.4 shows the input voltage and
current waveforms. It can be seen that in this case the
predominant harmonic component in the current waveform

Fig. 2.5 shows the circuit diagram of the single-phase fully
controlled rectifier. The diodes of the uncontrolled rectifier
have been replaced with thyristors. The controlled rectifier
is normally connected to a smoothing inductor on the DC
side. Thus the output current of the controlled rectifier could
be considered as constant. Fig 2.6 shows the input voltage
and current waveforms. The predominant harmonic
component in the current waveform is the 3rd and the
displacement angle is alpha.
Fig 2. 7 shows the circuit diagram of a three phase fully
controlled rectifier. Fig 2.8 shows the input voltage and
current waveforms. α is the triggering angle . The most
predominant harmonic component in the current waveform
is the 5th and the displacement angle is α
In the case of controlled rectifiers, it may be noted that the
fundamental component of current lags the respective phase
voltage by the triggering angle, α and the displacement
factor would be cos. α .
III.EFFECT ON POWER QUALITY
Rectifiers affect the quality of power supply by reducing the
power factor, by introducing voltage distortions and by RF
and EM interference
3.1 POWER FACTOR
When non- sinusoidal current is drawn from mains supply,
the term power factor (PF ) is not just the cosine of the
angle. The definition of power factor is Power factor =
Active Power / {RMS Voltage x RMS Current} Since the
voltage does not contain harmonic components, the active
power would be equal to the product of RMS value of
voltage (V), RMS value of the fundamental component of
current (I1) and the cosine of the angle (cos. α ) between
them. If I is the RMS value of the current including all
harmonic components. PF = V I 1 cos. α / (VI) i.e., PF =
(I1 / I) cos α In this case cos. α is called the displacement
factor and (I1 / I) is called the distortion factor which is the
ratio of the RMS value of the fundamental component of
current and the RMS value of the total current waveform. In
an ideal case both these factors should be unity.
3.2 VOLTAGE DISTORTIONS
While using rectifier circuits, voltage distortions take place
due to two factors namely, commutation notches and
voltage clamping, Commutation notches appear on the AC
lines due to momentary shorting of the lines through the
power devices while current transfers from the device on
one line to the device on another. This is more in case of
controlled rectifiers. The resulting notches appearing on the
supply would affect other equipment connected to the same
lines. Fig. 3.1 describes this phenomenon. Voltage
distortion due to voltage clamping occurs n uncontrolled
rectifiers. Fig. 3.2 shows this phenomenon. When the diodes
conduct, the input line voltage gets clamped to the DC
voltage across the capacitor. This also can affect other
equipment - connected to the same supply
3.3 RFI AND EMI

Radio frequency interference and electromagnetic

interference are problems created by rectifiers and other
power electronic equipment due to fast switching of voltage
and current. To reduce the effect of RFI, a capacitor filter
connected to the phases and to the earth terminal could be
used. To a large extent this prevents RFI going into the
supply lines. To reduce the effect of EMI, the di/dt in the
circuit should be kept within limits. Presently soft switching
circuits like resonant converters are available which are
used at low power levels. For high power levels the way of
preventing these problems is to keep dv/dt and di/dt
sufficiently low

IV.POWER QUALITY IMPACT ON DRIVES

The major power quality problems encountered on the

utility are:
• Voltage surges - high voltage spikes of very low
duration appearing on the supply
• . Voltage dips - dips in voltage for a few cycles due
to faults appearing on the load side
• High voltage -sustained high voltage beyond rated
for long periods
• Low voltage - sustained low voltage for long
These can be overcome if proper line snubber is used for periods
each rectifier that can absorb the difference in voltages as • Brown outs- loss of supply voltage for short
shown in fig 3.3 . This circuit uses an inductor (L), a periods ( a few cycles)
resistor ® and a capacitor ©. This also limits the di/dt and • Black outs - loss of supply voltage for long periods
dv/dt on the devices
The problems would affect any electronics equipment
connected to the supply. Variable speed drives are no
exception.

4.1 DC DRIVES
\
DC Drives use controlled rectifiers to obtain variable DC
voltage. The controlled rectifier senses the zero crossing of
line voltages to control the firing angle of the thyristors.
When the input voltage waveform has multiple zero
crossing due to voltage spikes or sudden dips, this sensing
would be erratic and the equipment misbehaves. Normally,
all DC Drives equipment are designed to trip on under
voltage over voltage and abnormal frequency conditions. In
a regenerative drive which uses four quadrant converter, if
the equipment is regenerating and an under voltage
condition occurs, there would be commutation failure
resulting in fuse failure and shut down of the equipment.
Sane is the case with brown out sand black outs

4.2 . AC VARIABLE FREQUENCY DRIVES

AC Drives, now a days, use uncontrolled rectifier at the

input followed by a Pulse Width Modulated inverter. In
modern AC drives, under supply failure, the inertial energy
in the mechanical system is used to bring the speed down to
zero, by keeping the DC voltage clamped slightly more than
normal. Under brown outs, the drive equipment would not
trip but continue to work, probably bringing the speed of the
motor slightly down. Under sustained over Voltage and
under voltage conditions, the equipment would be shut
down .Voltage surges can damage the power diodes
connected at the input. Snubber circuits help in preventing
device failure under input surge conditions to a certain
extent. Voltage clamping could take place if proper snubber
circuits are not used. The DC voltage of low rated
equipment would be forced down to those of higher rated
equipment due to this.

V.CONCLUSION

Variable Speed Drives and UPS systems which do not

pollute the input supply are being introduced in the market.
These use various configurations of unity power factor
sinusoidal current rectifiers. IEEE has brought out statutory
requirements on the amount of harmonic current
components that can be drawn form the mains. Already
directive have been issued in many countries. In India too
actions are on to introduce them