Implementation of a integrated algorithm for voltage variation and flicker measurements

Recently, voltage variation and flicker events in a power system are concerned by both of utility and customers. Actually, these two events are always measured separately, but in a certain cases they can happen successively. Voltage variation may cause equipments dropout or failure and result in huge economic losses; while voltage flicker will interfere human vision. In order to discriminate voltage variation from flicker in real time, this paper propose a virtual instrumentation system to implement a integrated algorithm which can complete the measurements of both events. The simulation results illustrate that the proposed method can effectively differentiate between voltage variation and flicker; besides, the field tests also validate the capability of the virtual instrument.