Power quality and modeling analysis of a university campus electrical distribution system

For a few years now, electrical power quality has been a topic of interest and discussion, mainly due to issues regarding costs, continuity of service and electrical installation energy efficiency. The lack in electrical power quality can reveal itself in different ways, in reactive power costs, in frequent tripping of protections, in overheating and overloads of equipment and cables, in the significant shortening of capacitor lifespans, and, on power grid resonance events. This paper makes an electrical power quality analysis on Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa (ISEL) school campus, more precisely, two transformer substations and several building electrical distribution boards that make up the campus’ electrical power grid. The acquired data enabled the graphical display of several electrical parameters, and their subsequent quantitative and qualitative analysis, regarding legislation and standards, namely, NP EN 50160; IEC 61000-2-3 and IEEE Std 1159-2019. In the paper, a Matlab/Simulink model of ISEL campus’ electrical power grid was developed, so that, when anomalies are identified, it will be possible to analyze and verify, through simulation, the effect that different solutions produce to mitigate them.