Planning Approaches for the Strategic Placement of Passive Harmonic Filters in Radial Distribution Networks

This paper presents an approach to determine strategic buses for harmonic filter placement by correlating the sensitivity index based on the inherent structure theory network (ISTN) and harmonic current injection at buses of the distribution network/feeder. The strategic buses for the harmonic filter are characterized as either the bus with maximum total harmonic voltage distortion $({\rm THD}_{\rm V})$ in a distribution feeder, or the bus where the placement of the harmonic filter would result in maximum reduction in the overall average ${\rm THD}_{\rm V}$ in the distribution feeder. The advantage of using this approach is that it provides insight into the interaction of the network structure with harmonic current sources in the distribution network in regards to the performance of harmonic filters. The assessment of the performance of a strategically placed passive harmonic filter based on the proposed approach is evaluated for peak and offpeak load scenarios on a radial distribution network. The results indicate that passive harmonic filters that are placed based on harmonic current emission levels perform better than harmonic filters placed based on ISTN alone. The strategically placed passive harmonic filters are highly effective in controlling harmonic propagation in distribution networks.