Effect of harmonic distortion in reactive power measurement

Abstract

The authors consider the effect of harmonics on reactive power measurements, and present a novel method for calculating active, reactive apparent, and residual power in nonsinusoidal conditions. The method considers common and uncommon harmonic components of voltage and current waveforms. It properly defines all power components at different harmonic frequencies, such as rotating real power, quadrature power, and the residual power (distortion). Each component is calculated correctly at different frequencies to define its physical meaning. A computer algorithm is developed to calculate all the power components for any distorted voltage and current waveforms. A numerical example is discussed.<>