Assessment of non-sinusoidal reactive power of shunt capacitors in the presence of distorted substation voltage in radial distribution systems

In this paper, an analytical assessment of non-sinusoidal reactive power of shunt capacitors in the presence of substation voltage harmonics in radial distribution systems has been attempted. The paper proposes a novel technique of assessing harmonic amplification in shunt capacitor banks due to distorted substation voltage. The proposed algorithm is based on the computation of Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) of bus voltages and shunt capacitor currents in which various non-sinusoidal terms are quantified as per IEEE-1459-2010 Standard. The article also highlights the extent of overloading of shunt capacitor banks and propagation of voltage distortion in various downstream buses of the distribution system under investigation. Proposed method is tested on two radial distribution systems and demonstrates good convergence characteristics. Keywords: Reactive power, Total Harmonic Distortion, Shunt capacitor, Substation voltage, Radial distribution system