Critical analysis of the harmonic power flow method to determine the dominant distortion source

Concerning harmonic distortions, in addition to traditional matters such as limits, measurements, effects, and others, the importance of establishing ways to determine the responsibility for possible violations of given limits emerges an important challenge. This subject has been considered by researchers and amongst some proposals, one of the most known methodologies for identification of the major source of harmonics consists in determining the direction of harmonic power flow by comparing the fundamental and harmonic power signals. This attempt has been supported by the fact that commercial power quality measurement equipment has the ability to quantify fundamental and individual harmonic powers. Focusing this approach, this paper is aimed at describing the theoretical fundamentals to the method, as well as to present and discuss computational and experimental studies performed for a hypothetical electrical arrangement. The final results are then used to demonstrate the method weakness to fulfill the established needs.