Educational perspective of low voltage power quality in modern electric installations

All electronic pieces of equipment having fast and frequent load variations are widely used today due to some obvious benefits like energy efficiency, flexibility, low costs and even reliability. But, they also produce some important disturbances on electrical distribution lines, mostly harmonics or fast changes of the reactive power. Due to all these issues, power quality aspects become essential for all electrical, power and electronical engineers of today. By consequent, permanent training and education of different specialists acting in this area, according to the updated norms and regulations of this field, becomes even mandatory. This article is about a main component of power energy quality in electrical power systems: harmonics (or interharmonics) pollution of a current wave passing throughout a normal nonlinear domestic load. Some generalities about harmonics analysis are presented first, followed by the description of a very simple and efficient method of power quality assessment, which is implemented in a dedicated educational, scientific and didactic platform. The experimental results are confirming the models involved for making the educational platform. At the end, there is a set of conclusions, related to all experiments involved and for future perspectives of using this piece of equipment. Some simple harmonic reduction and full suppression methods are also mentioned, as part of the teaching stand.