Electromagnetic Compatible Energy Measurements using the Orthogonality of Nonfundamental Power Components

Measurement bandwidth of energy measurements are increasing to incorporate all the harmonics created by nonlinear loads and distributed generators making the measurement electronics complex and sensitive to electromagnetic interference. This article proposes to change the accuracy paradigm by focusing on fundamental active power and lower harmonics for energy metering, simplifying the electronics and making them robust against electromagnetic interference. Using the orthogonality of power flow via Parseval’s theorem, a theoretical analysis, simulations, and measurements on power calculations using the fundamental active power are presented. It is shown that a perfect power measurement is achieved with a pure 50 Hz supply voltage, regardless of the nonlinear current. Even with the highest allowed harmonic distortion of the voltage and the current as listed in the international standards EN 50160 and IEC 61000-3-2, more than 97.5% of the active power is contained in the fundamental active power. Negligible active power is contained in the higher frequency components. This error margin falls within limits for electricity meters. Filtering the current with a basic low-pass filter can prevent the erroneous measurements that have appeared with static energy meters. In other words, it has been proven that negligible energy flows in the higher frequency components.