Harmonic Filtering Scheme Selection Based on Diagnosis with Independent Component Analysis

Non-synchronous generation may cause excessive harmonic distortion that flows from generators to consumers. Unfortunately, generator’s harmonic contribution and consumer’s harmonic contribution cannot be measured independently, which leads to the usual assumption of fully allocating the measured values to consumer’s facilities. This paper proposes a methodology to assess the feasibility of installing passive harmonic filters to mitigate harmonic distortion inside facilities by taking into account external harmonic distortion. Excessive external harmonic distortion may cause harmonic current to increase, instead of decrease, when installing passive harmonic filters. To estimate external harmonics, the use of Complex Independent Analysis (CICA) is proposed. CICA is a blind-source separation algorithm used to estimate contributions from different sources to a measured value. In the case where a passive filter solution is deemed unfeasible, an active harmonic filter is recommended.