Addressing an Unwelcome Guest in Microgrids: Supraharmonic Emissions

Wednesday, September 6, 2017 | 16:00 - 17:15

With the rise of distributed resources in microgrids, there will be more sources of supraharmonics, leading to potential malfunction of communication systems. Entities such as CENELEC and CIGRÉ emphasize the need for measurement methodologies as well as more measurements in real environments. This presentation discusses the characterization of supraharmonic emissions from distributed resources in a real microgied, in the range 2-150 kHz, and its influence over the PLC-based advanced metering infrastructure of the microgrid. This study concludes that supraharmonic emissions can affect PLC and that there are also different levels of affection, which have been demonstrated empirically.
  • Many distributed energy resources with transistor-based electronics are sources of supraharmonics
  • The behavior of supraharmonics is different from that of harmonics, widely addressed in literature
  • Empirical measurements in a real microgrid have demonstrated that supraharmonics can affect PLC
  • The numerical values of magnitude are not enough to characterize the supraharmonic emissions

    microgrids expert
    Noelia Uribe-Pérez
    CEDER-CIEMAT

    Noelia Uribe-Pérez received the M.S. Degree in Telecommunications Engineering at the University of Cantabria (Spain) in 2009. She has a Master in Renewable Energies, Fuel Cells and Hydrogen by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and a Master in Smart Cities from the University of Girona. Since 2013 she has been in the ICT Department at the Centre for the Development of Renewable Energy Sources (CEDER-CIEMAT), where she is focusing on the capacity of PLC for the management of microgrids with distributed energy sources and storage. Her current research interest is the analysis of noise sources and disturbing elements and their effects on power line communications (PLC) in Smart Grids.