Effects of harmonic distortion on the active and reactive power measurements in the time domain: a single phase system

A new application of the least error squares (LES) estimation algorithm is given for identifying, in the time domain, the active and reactive power from available samples of voltage and current waveforms. The digital available instruments used to monitor active, reactive and apparent power use such samples. A new definition for the active reactive and apparent power for sinusoidal and nonsinusoidal waveforms is discussed in this paper. It is shown that misleading reactive power compensation could be obtained if the circuit power factor is not well defined. Simulated results are presented for different waveforms, where the authors compare the results obtained with other available techniques