The effect of net harmonic currents produced by numbers of the Sydney Olympic Village's PV systems on the power quality of local electrical network

This paper presents a method for predicting the effect of net harmonic currents produced by numbers of residential PV inverters on the power quality of a low voltage electrical network. Simple experimental based models of a PV inverter, which have been installed at the Sydney Olympic Village, are described. The effect of background harmonic voltages, input current from PV arrays and also randomness in individual inverter's harmonic performances are taken into account. The study includes the harmonic measurement, data analysis, statistical analysis, mathematical modeling technique and simulations. The results of measurement from the Sydney Olympic Village and UNSW lab are compared to the simulation to confirm the accuracy of the models. Those results also show that harmonic voltages at the Olympic Village are far below both the IEEE 519-1992 and Australian Standard limits even after the operation of all PV inverter systems in the solar village (1.9%), and ready for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.