Harmonic Measurement and Analysis in Manufacturing Industry: Case Study

Power Quality (PQ) has gained significant importance in recent years and is one of the critical aspects of modern manufacturing plants. Harmonics is one of the important Power Quality disturbances and many failures of critical components in industry are observed due to it. This paper presents the case study of harmonic measurement in a manufacturing industry which was facing the issues of stoppage of critical processes due to harmonics. Extensive PQ measurements using Class A & Class S power quality loggers were performed in March and May 2024 in the industrial plant located in Chakan, Pune (India). It was observed that the HVAC load was causing harmonics distortion of 29.1% with dominant 2^nd, 4^th, 5^th and 7^th order harmonics and was injecting 46 A harmonic current. Shifting of the HVAC feeder load on the raw power resulted in an 81% reduction in the total harmonic current and a reduction of voltage THD from 2% to 0.66%. Detailed analysis of PQ measurements of UPS Output with and without HVAC load with the help of waveforms and harmonic spectrums is presented. Active harmonic filter sizing to improve the power quality of the industry is presented.