Power systems safety analysis with power quality devices

The utilization of power quality devices in the power networks can determine the protection system malfunctioning and hence the persons electrical safety can be compromised. The purpose of this paper is the evaluation of the shapes of voltage and current waves flowing into the human body in case of indirect contacts for various grounding configurations of the electric system, considering the human impedance as function of frequency. Indeed, power converters can generate high frequency oscillations of the phase-to-ground voltages that cannot be treated as conventional sinusoidal waveforms stipulated in the current standards. The simulation results presented in the paper give rise to interesting comments and discussion