Harmonic Distortion in Low Voltage Residential Grids Caused by LED Lamps

In the following years, a massive use of Light-Emitting Diode (LED) lamps is expected to occur in the residential sector. As these lamps include a power electronic interface, their widespread implementation can have a significant impact on current and voltage harmonics in residential Low Voltage (LV) networks. This paper evaluates the expected contribution by LED lighting to the distortion levels of odd harmonics up to the 19th order by a linear and non-iterative method in which harmonic emission models of different detail are implemented to represent the LED lamps. A synthetic LV residential grid developed for an Argentinian province is selected as study case and a Monte Carlo simulation is designed to represent the random usage behavior of lighting devices in households. Obtained results indicate that modeling the LED lamps as constant current sources provides an adequate estimation of RMS line and neutral currents, while a complete coupled Norton model representing the elements by tensors derived using Fourier Descriptors is required to yield accurate current and voltage harmonics.