The Seeker+ runs a power quality survey right out of the box. Mount it, energize it, and it detects the circuit hookup and logs every measure it supports, each aggregated…
Harmonics White Papers
Power quality white papers on Harmonics.
16 white papers in Harmonics
Introduction to Supraharmonics
As electronic power converters are increasing in prevalence on the grid, especially EV chargers, photovoltaic inverters, variable frequency drives, and LED lighting systems, a new power quality issue is arising…
Working with Live Data in PMI View
PMI View’s live data pages show waveforms, phasors, and tabular values from a connected device, updating as you watch, without interrupting an active recording. During initialization, the live data pages…
Heat Pumps and the Winter Peak
As American homes shift from gas furnaces to heat pumps, the load that used to burn gas now arrives at the residential transformer — in winter, at the coldest hours,…
Understanding Load Diversity and Its Effect on Power Quality
Introduction Your home and the office building down the street both run on electricity from the same utility, but they don’t typically use it in the same way at the…
COMTRADE in PQ Canvass
The Common Format for Transient Data Exchange (COMTRADE) defined by IEEE C37.111 and IEC 60255-24 is a file format most commonly produced by protective relays and digital fault recorders, though…
Introduction to Ferroresonance
Ferroresonance is a nonlinear electrical phenomenon that can damage transformers, surge arresters, cable insulation, and switchgear — and create dangerous backfeed voltages on conductors that should be de-energized. Although relatively…
Recognizing Transformer Energization in Power Quality Data
Transformer energization events occur frequently in electrical distribution systems and often appear in power quality recordings. These events can produce large transient currents and waveform distortions that may initially resemble…
Power Theory in Multiphase Distorted Systems
Introduction “Geometric Foundations of Power Theory for Multiphase AC systems in the Frequency Domain” is a great research article written by Francisco Montoya and others and it clearly explains a…
Even vs. Odd Harmonics
Engineered Asymmetry Audiophiles routinely spend thousands of dollars on vintage vacuum tube amplifiers to deliberately inject their music with what power engineers spend millions trying to eliminate: harmonic distortion. Vacuum…
Residential Interharmonics
Interharmonics are produced when loads draw current asynchronously to the utility voltage. Traditional loads include arc furnaces, welders, and AC-DC converter systems where the loads are fed from DC supplies.…
Variable Frequency Drives and Harmonics
Abstract A VFD, or Variable Frequency Drive, is a device which takes in a 3 phase AC signal and outputs a somewhat arbitrary waveform using pulse width modulation. This is…