Impact of appliances harmonic content in microgrid environments

Harmonic contents are a growing and challenging problem. The increasing number of electronic appliances and the use of adjustable speed drivers (ASD) in fridges, dryers and washers as well as the insertion of distributed generation (DG) in smart grids using power electronics converters are some of many generators of harmonic contents presented in distribution systems. This study proposes an approach to identify the harmonic losses generated by appliances in distribution power systems likely to microgrid environments considering DG and susceptible of islanding. To develop this methodology models of appliances using real data measurements associated in different scenarios are created. A typical distribution system multi grounded neutral (MGN) is employed to determine the impact that each appliance harmonic contents have in the distribution power system technical losses.