1

Home 1 More

Question Asked 3 years ago

Majidreza Salehi
3.76 · Khorasan Institute of Higher Education
What is the reason of DC harmonics in grid-connected converters?
We designed a grid-connected converter for wind. We saw in the grid side there is a DC current.

Can anybody solve this problem?

Electronic Engineering Electrical Engineering DC Machines Solar Energy Harmonics

Recommend Share 5 Recommendations

Popular Answers (1)

Kamran Kazem 3 years ago
Added an answer

Let's get back to fundamentals here. I want to make the point that there is no such thing as "DC Harmonics", as DC is de ned as zero
frequency. However, there can be DC output current from your wind inverter that ows into the grid. This would be caused by slightly
unequal positive versus negative half cycle waveforms of your sine wave output. This in turn, can be caused by your control ckt or by
some unequal part of your power circuit switches. If you have a 3-phase output, the situation is not different than single phase, but there
can be inequalities causing DC output current between any of the 3-phases. Normally, in an inverter such as this, there will always be
some DC output current, but it's usually small enough to ignore, like in the low mA range or less on a several kVA or higher inverter.  If you
are using a digital scope, you should be able to take a measurement of the output voltage waveform from Line-to-Line, then download
the waveform to a computer using perhaps MS Excel or other math program and you can separate the positive and negative half-cycles
and compare them to see how unequal they are and this is a rst step to debugging your inverter design to minimize the DC output
current. Notice I didn't say to eliminate it, as that would be very hard, but getting the DC output down to a reasonably low enough level
shouldn't be that hard.

Recommend 3 Recommendations
All Answers (6)
Maddali V S Murali Krishna 3 years ago
Added an answer

The wind turbine is directly connected to the recti er side of the converter. The capacitive coupling by the DC bus through the wind
turbine is composed of the path between the recti er side and ground because of the high harmonic current component imposed by the
switching actions, whereas the capacitive coupling seen through the grid is represented by the inverter side, the lter and the
underground cable. It is observed that the harmonics components near the switching

frequency are considerably higher than the fundamental component. Harmonics components 70 (3500 Hz) is 575% of fundament
component magnitude which is 3.05 V. 

Ref: Harmonic Distortion in Renewable Energy Systems: Capacitive Couplings

Miguel García-Gracia, Nabil El Halabi, Adrián Alonso and M.Paz Comech

CIRCE (Centre of Research for Energy Resources and Consumption)

University of Zaragoza ;Spain 

Recommend 1 Recommendation

Mohammed Abdulla abdulsada 3 years ago

Added an answer

Any electrical system contains a power electronics device, such as a converters or inverters, draws  a distorted current ( non sinusoidal)
from the main supply. The Fourier analysis shows that any non sinusoidal signal will contains a harmonics in addition to the
fundamental. If there are a dc harmonics, that is indicated to distorted output voltage waveform.   

Recommend 1 Recommendation
 Kamran Kazem 3 years ago
Added an answer

Let's get back to fundamentals here. I want to make the point that there is no such thing as "DC Harmonics", as DC is de ned as zero
frequency. However, there can be DC output current from your wind inverter that ows into the grid. This would be caused by slightly
unequal positive versus negative half cycle waveforms of your sine wave output. This in turn, can be caused by your control ckt or by
some unequal part of your power circuit switches. If you have a 3-phase output, the situation is not different than single phase, but there
can be inequalities causing DC output current between any of the 3-phases. Normally, in an inverter such as this, there will always be
some DC output current, but it's usually small enough to ignore, like in the low mA range or less on a several kVA or higher inverter.  If you
are using a digital scope, you should be able to take a measurement of the output voltage waveform from Line-to-Line, then download
the waveform to a computer using perhaps MS Excel or other math program and you can separate the positive and negative half-cycles
and compare them to see how unequal they are and this is a rst step to debugging your inverter design to minimize the DC output
current. Notice I didn't say to eliminate it, as that would be very hard, but getting the DC output down to a reasonably low enough level
shouldn't be that hard.

Recommend 3 Recommendations

Alex Van den Bossche 3 years ago

Added an answer

True that DC is not a multiple harmonic but it is the zero sequence harmonic. There are typical ways to have DC: 1) Even harmonics and a
non-linear element such as a recti er 2) A disturbance (capacitive, inductive) in the feedback signals that is equal to the controlled
frequency 3) Even when you want to compensate that offset, DC transducers have offset, and temperature coef cient of the offset. 4)
Not perfect functioning appliances such as a CFL where one diode is de-soldered. 5) Some soldering irons and hair dryers use diodes as
a cheap way to choose 50% power level. 

DC is harmful in transformers if it is a signi cant fraction of the magnetising current, let say 20A in 1MVA distribution transformers, and
0.02A in accurate 50Hz measurement transformers. A saturating transformer draws an exaggerated magnetising current and makes
noise. In England distributing companies ask limits of milliamps DC. This is a way to keep away renewable energy by making it costly
and to avoid import of devices from foreign countries. In fact every time an instrument is started, a DC fraction is injected in the grid.
Milliamps make no sense, except for measurement, but measurement equipment can be adapted to be insensitive to it. 

Recommend 2 Recommendations

Sujit K. Biswas 3 years ago

Added an answer

DC is created in the current of a PWM converter or inverter due to:

1) inequal positive & negative areas of the voltage created; This may be due to control pulse width generation problem, inequal delays in
top & bottom gate drive circuits, inequal dead-time or blanking periods between top & bottom devices, inequal voltage drops in switching
devices (IGBTs)

2) load characteristics; like presence of a half-wave recti er connected to the AC line that draws DC component of current from the AC
supply

3) existing DC offset of the AC grid waveform; If the existing grid already has a DC  voltage offset due to its line impedance & connected
load (note that DC current ow through a line creates DC voltage drop and hence DC offset at the load end), then as the connected
converter waveform tries to synchronize with it, a DC current will ow.

Recommend 1 Recommendation

Emre Durna 3 years ago

Added an answer

The most common reason for DC component of supply current is inequality of positive and negative half cycles of converter output. If
you are sure that the both cycles are equal, you should know that for some converter topologies, dc component can be seen as a natural
cause of conversion especially working in capacitive region.  If you give a detailed information regarding your inverter/recti er system, I
can propose you a solution to reduce dc currents (you can never guarantee zero dc component, it will always be there) to negligible
values. The most basic solution to decrease dc currents is simply adding an intentional dc voltage reference to the converter output
which gives an opposite effect to existing dc component. Most probably you have step-up transformers to connect the grid, you should
notice that the transformer most probably subject to core saturation due to dc current components(especially when your current has
leading angle because leading angle causes a voltage rise in a transformer terminal). You may verify the core saturation by observing a
current waveform which has a triangular shape instead of sinusoidal. It is obvious that the dc component can not pass through high
voltage side due to transformer nature so you have nothing to worry for power system, but it is dangerous to transformer when it has
high values.

Recommend
 Khuong Vinh Nguyen
University of Arkansas
Answer

Add an answer

Add les View conditions for sharing content Add answer

© 2008-2018 ResearchGate GmbH. All rights reserved.

About us · Help Center · Careers · Developers · News · Privacy · Terms · Copyright  |  Advertising · Recruiting