A Smart Recording Power Analyzer Prototype Using LabVIEW and Low-Cost Data Acquisition (DAQ) in Being a Smart Renewable Monitoring System

Nowadays, to indicate the quality of Thailand's existing power system including the newly-installed distributed renewable energy sources, a number of pricy power quality analyzers are being used in most areas. This article proposes an alternative of such equipment called a smart recording power analyzer prototype (SRPA) using a combination of LabVIEW™ algorithms and a low-cost data acquisition (DAQ) device. The newly-proposed set of equipment not only has the ability to achieve the same accuracy and functionalities of currently-used power analyzers, but also has the advanced features supporting Thailand's future-to-come smart grid system. The proposed SRPA is capable of simultaneous monitoring/recording both numerical data and waveforms in normal system operating conditions and when fault occurs e.g. voltage, current, frequency, real and reactive power, apparent power, energy consumption, power factor, harmonic distortion, voltage/frequency fluctuation, voltage unbalance, sag-swell, symmetrical components, flickers and many kind of faults detection. In this paper, the SRPA hardware configurations and LabVIEW™ algorithms will be thoroughly elaborated. The accuracy verification process has been strictly done under various controllable conditions by comparing the results of the SRPA with the standard measuring units in both laboratory environment and two renewable energy power plants. Experimental results in the laboratory illustrate that the proposed SRPA is comparable in accuracy and far superior to several references in terms of functionalities and flexibilities. Experimental results from the two renewable power plants: (1) a 130kW-biogas pig farm power plant and (2) a 1MW solar power plant demonstrate that the proposed SRPA is highly efficient and reliable compared to the factory-installed measuring units. The average percent errors are less than 2%. The proposed SRPA also has the ability to be set up as a network which will be potentially beneficial for a future smart grid/micro grid online monitoring system.