Assessment of harmonic contribution of a photovoltaic installation based on field measurements

Abstract

Quantifying harmonic contribution of customer installations to the voltage distortion in the network is still one of the main challenges of utilities with respect to power quality, particularly when integrating large number of renewable energy sources. This paper discusses different aspect of evaluating the low-order harmonic emission of a 100 kW photovoltaic (PV) installation consisting of 16 single-phase inverters. Based on field measurements of one week the harmonic currents of the installation are analyzed with respect to different operating conditions. The measured harmonic currents are compared with emission values provided by the manufacturer as well as emission limits specified in standards. Finally, different methods for the determination of the contribution of the PV installation to the voltage distortion in the network are compared.