Although the overall levels of harmonics in modern power supply systems are in most of the practical cases still below the prescribed tolerance limits and thresholds (e.g. these stipulated in [IEC 61000-3-2 and 61000-3-12]), the sources of harmonics are constantly increasing in numbers and are expected to increase even more in the future. Some of the examples of modern non-linear power electronic (PE) devices that are expected to be employed on a much wider scale in LV networks in the future include: light-emitting diode (LED) lamps, switched-mode power supplies (SMPS'), electric vehicle battery chargers (EVBCs) and photovoltaic inverters (PVIs), which are all analysed in this thesis. The thesis first reviews the conventional harmonic analysis methods, investigating their applicability to modern PE devices. After that, the two most widely used forms of harmonic models, i.e. component-based models (CBMs) and frequency-domain models (FDMs), are applied for modelling of the four abovementioned types of modern PE devices and their models are fully validated by measurements. The thesis next investigates the impact of supply voltage conditions and operating modes (e.g. low vs high operating powers) on the device characteristics and performance, using both measurements and developed CBMs and FDMs. The obtained results confirm that both supply conditions and operating modes have an impact on the characteristics of most of the considered PE devices, which is taken into account in the developed models and demonstrated on a number of case studies. As the next contribution, the thesis proposes new indices for the evaluation of current waveform distortions, allowing for a separate analysis of contributions of low and high frequency harmonics and interharmonics to the total waveform distortion of PE devices. As the modern PE devices are normally based on high-frequency switching converters or inverters, the impact of circuit topologies and control algorithms on their harmonic emission characteristics and performance is also investigated. Special attention is given to the operation of PE devices at low powers, when there is a significant increase of current waveform distortion, a substantial decrease of efficiency and power factors and when input ac current might lose its periodicity with the supply voltage frequency. This is analysed in detail for SMPS', resulting in the proposal of a new methodology ("operating cycle based method") for evaluating overall performance of PE devices across the entire range of operating powers. Finally, a novel and simple hybrid harmonic modelling technique, allowing for the use of both time-domain and frequency-domain models in the same simulation environment, is proposed and illustrated on the selected case studies. This is accompanied with a frequency-domain aggregation approach, which is applied in the thesis to investigate the impact of increasing numbers of different types of modern PE devices on the LV network. The implementation of the developed hybrid harmonic modelling approach and frequency-domain aggregation technique is demonstrated on the example of a typical (UK) urban generic LV distribution network and used for the analysis of different deployment levels of EVs and PVIs. The presented harmonic modelling framework for individual PE devices and, particularly, for their aggregate models, fills the gap in the existing literature on harmonic modelling and characterisation of modern PE devices, which is important for the correct evaluation of their harmonic interactions and analysis of the impact of their large-scale deployment on the overall network performance.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:763944 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Xu, Xiao |
| Contributors | Djokic, Sasa ; Macpherson, Ewen |
| Publisher | University of Edinburgh |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://hdl.handle.net/1842/33106 |
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