Applications of parametric spectral estimation methods on detection of power system harmonics

Harmonics are the major power quality problems in industrial and commercial power systems. Several methods for detection of power system harmonics have been investigated by engineers due to increasing harmonic pollution. Since the non-integer multiple harmonics (inter and sub-harmonics) become wide spread, the importance of harmonic detection has increased for sensitive filtration. This paper suggests parametric spectral estimation methods for the detection of harmonics, inter-harmonics and sub-harmonics. Yule Walker, Burg, Covariance and Modified Covariance methods are applied to generate cases. Not only integer multiple harmonics but also non-integer multiple harmonics are successfully determined in the computer simulations. Further, performances of proposed methods are compared with each other in terms of frequency resolution. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.