An investigation on the harmonic attenuation effect of modern compact fluorescent lamps

In recent years, awareness of energy conservation and environmental protection has promoted the use of energy efficient home appliances. Compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) are expected to replace incandescent bulbs as they consume comparatively less energy and their useful life is longer. However, compact fluorescent lamps absorb extremely distorted current waveforms, resulting in high current harmonic injections on the electrical grid. Like other electronic devices based on single-phase rectification, CFLs are susceptible to the attenuation effect. If this effect is not taken into consideration, the cumulative harmonic current produced by the lamps can be significantly overestimated and the results obtained using the current-source model can be too conservative to be useful. This paper focuses on the harmonic characterization of modern compact fluorescent lamps. It presents experimental analysis investigation on the attenuation effect of CFLs, which is caused by the influence of distorted supply voltage on nonlinear load harmonic current injections.