Influence of the Carrier Phase on Flicker Measurement for Rectangular Voltage Fluctuations

This paper presents an analysis of the influence of the phase relationship between the fundamental frequency and the rectangular voltage fluctuation on flicker measurements made by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) flickermeter. We analytically studied the origin of the deviations for a set of significant fluctuation frequencies. We found that the nonlinear behavior of the squaring multiplier of the IEC flickermeter produces an additional dc component in instantaneous flicker sensation P_inst for several rectangular fluctuation frequencies. The value of this dc component depends on the phase relationship between the fundamental and the fluctuation frequency. The analysis of this paper has contributed to clarify the definition of some performance tests of the IEC flickermeter standard IEC 61000-4-15 ed.2. This will help develop calibration and verification methods for the flickermeters.