ENERGY METERS QUALITY UNDER DISTORTED AND IMBALANCED SYSTEMS

Abstract

Nowadays the study of power quality is a critical issue due to the proliferation of “nonlinear” consumers connected to the grid, most of them electronic loads which produce voltage and current waveforms distortion, causing a worse operation of the power system and leading to higher losses. At present, “bad customers” of power energy are only penalized due to reactive power consumption. The measurement of this consumption is made by using conventional energy meters designed to operate under sinusoidal and balanced systems with parametres within the required limits. In this paper the experimental validation of these devices in low voltage power systems with harmonic distortion and imbalance is carried out. Finally, a new ratio is proposed for the electrical billing, to penalize at the same time the reactive power consumption, the harmonic pollution and the imbalance.