Towards a Coordinated Spectral Support Estimation of Sinusoidal Disturbances in Smart Grids through Synchronized Measurements

The increasing diffusion of both large nonlinear loads and renewable-based Distributed Energy Resources may cause serious Power Quality problems, e.g., due to the widespread use of high-efficiency smart power electronics converters (PECs). Despite the considerable effort in mitigating the harmonic distortion injected by these devices, a reliable and accurate detection of the most critical harmonic and interharmonic components affecting a distribution system is essential not only for monitoring, but also for compensation purposes. In this paper, a first step in this direction is proposed. The basic idea is to improve the estimation accuracy of the spectral support of possible sinusoidal disturbances by merging synchronized measurements collected in different points of a grid to better compensate critical harmonics and interharmonics through smart PECs. In particular, a coordinated method based on the local identification of the sinusoidal components in voltage or signal waveforms followed by a weighted average of the frequency estimates of the most significant components in the grid is presented and evaluated through simulations. The reported results confirm the feasibility and the benefits of the coordinated approach.