Analysis of Active and Reactive Power, Power factor and Electrical Energy measurements in Harmonic Polluted Environment.

The charges of electrical energy are usually computed by a measuring device which integrates the total active power consumed by the load. In a harmonic polluted system, the total power used by a harmonic load is less than the power of fundamental frequency. As a result the producer of electrical power is charging less, i.e., smaller bill for the consumer. On the other hand, if the load is linear, the total consumed power is more than that of the fundamental frequency, thus a linear load will pay more in harmonic environment. From power loss point of view, the harmonical power produced by nonlinear loads will have great impact on the total line losses of the network, and its influence on other equipment is inevitable and most of the times undesirable. In this paper, it is proposed that the charges for the consumers to be computed based on the fundamental power of the load and not the total measured electrical energy. Also the nonlinear loads should be some what penalized for the produced harmonics. Ofcourse harmonics of nonlinear loads should not be permitted above certain threshold.