Summation law for supraharmonic currents (2-150 kHz) in low-voltage installations

The development of methods to study the propagation of supraharmonics in LV and even MV grids is a current research topic among the power quality community, which has been motivated by the efforts to establish limits for non-intentional supraharmonic emissions and planning levels. The assessment of how much distortion a bulk use of power electronics devices can inject into the grid is necessary before stating emission limits and planning levels for supraharmonics. To address this issue, the development of suitable models that can predict the supraharmonic emission from a low-voltage installation as a whole is required. This article presents a comparison of models for the summation of supraharmonics. An improved model for the summation of supraharmonics is proposed, which is validated experimentally. It is shown that by using the proposed model, predictions of supraharmonic propagation can be accomplished. Furthermore, it is demonstrated experimentally that, with the increasing number of supraharmonic emitting devices, the supraharmonic current distortion injected into a grid by an installation increases up to a maximum value and then decreases due to the capacitive nature of power electronics appliances existing in low-voltage networks.