The characteristics of fluorescent lamps under problematic utility voltage

Different types of fluorescent lamps (FL) play an important role in lighting, since they can provide significant energy saving and last longer than incandescent lamps. However, although the voltage waveform of an electrical power source is considered to be purely sinusoidal at the stage of the circuit design, there appear to be ever-increasing system voltage problems of amplitude variation and harmonic distortion, it is therefore important to realize the effects on the performances of FL under problematic utility voltage. In this paper, tests were conducted on a developed harmonic generating system to realize the electrical and illumination characteristics of two popular types of FL. The interested characteristics includes active power, power factor, total current harmonic distortion and system efficiency. The tested results relevant to the effect of voltage variation and harmonic distortion upon FL were proposed and discussed.