A VI-based measurement system for sharing the customer and supply responsibility for harmonic distortion

Owing to the proliferation of loads which draw nonsinusoidal currents, the current and the voltage distortion in public distribution systems is ever increasing. The usual online investigation methods cannot provide information about the responsibility for harmonic distortion in a given metering section. New methodologies are therefore searched for. Some recently proposed investigation techniques are recalled in this paper and the relevant measurement problems are discussed. A digital measurement system which is based on the virtual instrumentation (VI) technique and implements these methods, is described. The results of some experimental work are also presented