Analysis of even harmonics generation in an isolated electric power system

Harmonics bred from loads are mainly odd order because the current waveforms have half-wave symmetry. Since the even harmonics are negligibly small, they generally are not measured in electric power systems. However, even harmonics were measured at a 500/275/154 kV substation in Hokuriku Electric Power Company after a transmission line fault was corrected. The even harmonics caused malfunctions of protective digital relays because the relays used 4th harmonics at the input filter as the automatic supervisory signal. This paper describes mechanisms of generation of the even harmonics by comparing the measured waveforms with the ATP-EMTP simulation results. Analysis of these results has clearly shown that there are three different mechanisms of generation of even harmonics. The first mechanism is the appearance of a magnetizing current in transformers due to flux deviation by the DC component of the fault current. The second mechanism is harmonic conversion of a synchronous machine which generates even harmonics when the DC component or the even harmonic current flow into the machine. The third mechanism is an increase of harmonic impedance due to an isolated power system, thus producing the harmonic voltages. The design of the input filter of protective digital relays should take into account even harmonics generation in an isolated power system.