System-level Assessment for Power Quality Impact on Residential Distribution Grid

This paper presents a system-level analysis of power quality (P.Q.) in the residential distribution grid. Household electronic devices share a point of common coupling (PCC) at the house's service panel. Thus, transients and oscillation caused by household appliances can tend to impact other sensitive electronics connected at PCC. Of special interest is the impact of market-dominant TRIAC-based dimmers with LED lamps on the neighboring circuits such as PFC-based adapters. The inherent nature of distortion caused by TRIAC during turn-on instant leads to voltage notches at the PCC. Certain problems such as voltage distortion at the junction box of a room, a current glitch at the line current for residential appliances with EMI filter, and increased harmonic oscillations due to multiple electronics are addressed. The model explains the cause of the P.Q. degradation in TRIAC dimmer-based LED lamp systems. Further, the role of line impedance is also modeled as it represents the medium by which crosstalk leads to deterioration in voltage quality in the electrical system. It is revealed that the operating modes and component interactions lead to undesired disturbances. The preliminary simulation model results are validated by experiments.