ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines common power quality disturbances and means to mitigate them in order to minimize significant damages to the building electrical systems and maintain reliable performance of electrical equipment. It considers voltage sags, voltage swells, interruptions, and transients’ events that greatly affect the current and voltage waveforms and can result in significant damage to, especially, electronic devices connected to the electrical distribution systems. Voltage unbalances can generate overheating within the windings of induction and synchronous machines. The chapter provides a detailed description of the harmonic distortions, with specific metrics to assess their magnitudes and mitigation methods to reduce their effects. The chapter also provides some mitigation options to eliminate or at least reduce the power quality problems. Specifically, harmonic filters are designed to have low impedances to ensure that the harmonic currents are flowing between the loads and the filters, rather than reaching the power source and the other components of the electrical distribution systems.
