IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 6, No.

4, October 1991

1593

DIGITAL MEASUREMENT OF VOLTAGE FLICKER

Krishnaswamy Srinivasan, Senior Member IEEE IREQ-Hydro Quebec, 1800 Montee SteJulie, Varennes, QuBbec, J3X 1S1, Canada.

ABSTRACT Quality of power is of prime concern to power companies. This paper deals with cyclic variations in the envelope of voltage waveforms. The E u r o p e a n power utilities have done a substantial work already in its characterization, based on the effects on visual perception. They have also established a norm for the calculation of an instantaneous flicker level, a short-term severity coefficient, and a long-term severity coefficient. The measurement techniques, that they propose, are basically designed for analog instrumentation. It can be readily seen that digital implementationsof the analog design are neither cost effective nor optimal in performance. This paper proposes a method for direct calculation of flicker level from digital measurements of voltage waveforms. Results based on simulated data indicate that the proposed approach yields sufficiently accurate results for 1024 point FFT with 480 Hz. sampling using a 12 bit A/D. Thus a value of instantaneousflicker level can be obtained every 2.13 seconds. Key Words: Flicker, Power, Voltage, Pruned,Fourier transform.

One such weighting curve (figure 2) has been standardized by the Union Tntemationale dklectrothermie[6] Conventional flicker-meters[5]apply the frequency weighting curve as a Fiter on the rms voltage signal. The signal resulting after squaring and smoothing is referred to as the instantaneous flicker level.

(m).

A Short-term flicker severity coefficient FST, has also been proposed by UIk, based on the fact that a higher level of flicker can be tolerated for a shorter period of time and vice versa. This coefficient is obtained from the distribution function of the instantaneous flicker level (IFL) over typically ten minute intervals. The formula proposed (1) is the square root of the weighted sum of five values of instantaneous flicker on the distribution function curve.
FST =

(0.0314 F 0 . 1

+ +

0.0525 F1.0 0 . 2 8 F1o

+
where

0.0657 F 3 . 0

0 . 0 8 F50)

(1)

Introduction
The electric power utilities are now in a maturity stage, with the economic operation and the quality of power receiving the prime consideration[l]. One of the degradations in quality is the slow and repetitive (1 Hz. to 30 Hz.) variation of the rms voltage. This is referred to as flicker[2,3]. Even when the variation is within the recommended limits, its cyclical nature may lead to problems. Flicker afects the starting torque, slip, starting current, temperature rise and overload capacity of motors and generators. Flicker reduces the life of electronic. incandescent, fluorescent and CRT devices. Electronic controllers are likely to misbehave during voltage variations. Flicker influences visual perception of light. High power loads, with sudden changes in load demand are one of the chief sources of flicker. Some such loads are reciprocating pumps, com~essors.automatic spot-welders, arc welders, elevator motors and other types of variable loads. Their propagation characteristics are similar to the voltage sags and swells. Flicker has usually been quanwied on the basis of human visual irritation[4]. Efforts have been ma& by many organizations to obtain a weighting function, which is the combined effect of three factors: human eye's response to light (a) characteristics of the luminescent device @) (c) type of voltage fluctuation.
91 WM 087-7 PWRD A paper recommended and approved by the IEEE Transmission and Distribution Committee of the IEEE Power Engineering Society for presentation at the IEEE/PES 1991 Winter Meeting, New York, New York, February 3, 1991. Manuscript submitted February 13, 1990; made available for printing November 30, 1990.

Fo 1 = IFL.that is exceeded during 0.1%of the time Fl . = IFL.that is exceeded during 1.O% of the time = IFL,that is exceeded during 3.0% of the time F3 = IFL. that is exceeded during 10%of the time Flo = IFL, that is exceeded during 50% of the time F,,

Time
Fig 1. A typical voltage flicker

Frequency in Hz.
Fig 2. Weighting curve proposed by UIk
0885-8977/91$01.ooO 1991 IEEE

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A long term flicker severity coefficient for Characterizing the flicker level over periods of days or weeks, recommended by U8 is given in (2)
FLT =

average F S ~ 3 over several interval.

(2)

(2-rei - k=i).fa. These frequencies as well as the 2 ~ i - f J N frequency term is lumped i n t o a t e r m xli, which includes all frequencies higher than m*f.JN. The resulting signal xi is given by (5) m xi= 1+ X 2g,cos( (2i)ki + %) + x i (5)
k=l

This papex deals with the instantaneous flicker level and proposes a direct method for obtaining it from digital measurements of voltage. Results based on simulated data are included.
Digital representation of a modulated voltage
The power frequency voltage, modulated by several frequencies z . .can be represented by a discrete time series from 0.5 Hz to 25 H by sampling the analog voltage. The frequencies of interest in the voltage signal will be between 35 Hz.and 85 Hz. (for a 60 Hz. power system). There will be no loss of information as long as the sampling frequency is more than twice the maximum frequency of interest, namely 170 Hz. In order to avoid aliasing errors, the analog signal should be filtered before sampling, to eliminate h a n half the sampling frequency. The equation frequencies higher t (3) represents a digitized sinusoidal power signal whose waveform is modulated by several low frequencies (figure 1).
vi

(c) A weighting filter which has a frequency response equal to W k for a frequency of k*(ffl) is applied to the above signal. It should be noted that W k is zero for frequencies greater t h a n m*(f,/N) as well as for zero fnequency. The resulting signal yi is given by ( 6 ) .

The U6 has proposed a four pole analog filter F(s), which approximatest h e i r weighting curve.
k
F(s) =

(S2+ 2

y +

(1

s/y)
S/%)

O f )(1

(1

(7)

S/04)

k X
01

= 1.74802 = 2-~4.05981 =2~~9.15494

9 y
04

=2~2.21979
= 2.~1.22535

= 20~21.9

= A [l

X g, con((2x/N)
*COS(

ki

k=l

cpk)]

(2x/N) ri

+ cpr)

(3)

represents a multiplication operation uniformly spaced instants of time (0.1.2 .....N-1) voltage at the i-th instant of time initial phase of fundamentalpower frequency Q0 A amplitude of fundamental power frequency N numberofdatapoints fs sampling frequency fs/N frequency resolution r f f l fundamental power frequency k fs/N k-th modulation frequency initial phase of k-th modulation frequency 'pk amplitude of k-th modulation frequency cxk weighting factor for k-th modulation frequency wk i vi

(d) As a final step, the resulting signal is squared and averaged over short periods of time during which the flicker is assumed constant, to obtain instantaneous flicker level IFL. S q u a r i n 5 e 6 ) . using the fact that the average of cos 8 is right hand side of ( 0.5, the relation (8) is obtained.

Digital Implementationof the Analog Weighting Filter

The reference [6] reports a digital implementation of the analog technique. The major problem is in the digital implementation of the weighting filter. The following alternatives are available. (a) The filter transfer function (7) is represented by a set of integral equations relating the input to the output. It is then implementedusing digital integrations (figure 3).

Analog Measurement of IFL

The following steps summarize the analog implementation [6]of the instantaneous flicker level IF^) calculation. (a) A demodulation is performed by squaring the voltage signal. The squaring of each term on the right hand side of (3) and using the equality cos28 = (l+cos28)/2 equation (4) is obtained.
: v

= A2[l

+
m

X g, cos((2ff/N)ki

cpk)I2

k=l *cos2((2n/N) ri
= A2[1+ Z 2 q c o s ( (2x/N) ki k=1

+ cp,)
o( a ' ) 3
(4)

out

cpk)

[l+coa ( (2n/N) 2ri+2cpr) ] /2

Since the modulation factors a are generally very small compared to 1.O, their squares are neglected. (b) The signal is normalized by dividing by its average value, namely 0.5*A2.The products of sine terms of frequencies 2*r*i*fs/N and koi-ffl lead to frequencies of (2.r.i + k + f a and

Fig. 3. Implementation of the analog filter.

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(b) A bi-linear transformation, namely replacing s by (2/r) (1-z-1) / (1+~-1) will lead to an imprecise filter, because the frequency characteristicis not piecewise constant-

i n i t e impulse response filter was designed by window (c) A f method. A FIR filter (figure 4.) of at least 200-th order was necessary to represent the desired frequency response adequately.
O.OGr .................................................................................................

(b) The block of N real data points is Fourier transformed to obtain its representation in the frequency domain. Each point will represent a frequency resolution of fs/N. The highest frequency represented will be The DFT of the time function vi gives frequency function V k

fsn.

,II

Since 4 = 2,

(c) The instantaneous flicker level is computed by the summation (9) with the weight factors wk It is not necessary to obtain all the N E complex values of the Fourier transform V k The IFL computation requires only those frequencies, that influence the amplitude ak of modulation frequencies. N m a l FFT routines compute the complex v k values for k = 0 to (N-l)n. However since ak for k = 1 to m only, are required, one needs to compute the Fourier transform v k for k = r-m to r only. A technique called F l T pruning [7] can increase the efficiency of FFT by eliminating the butterflies which affect values outside the range of interest.

Sampling Instants.
Fig 4. Impulse response of FIR filter. It can be readily seen that digital implementation of the analog approaches are neither cost efficient nor optimal in performance.

Instantaneous Flicker Level (IFL) From equation (8), it follows that the instantaneous flicker level IFL, defined by VI& can be obtained from the digital representation (3) of an amplitude modulated power frequency signal by the relation (9).
IFL =

FFT Pruning
The pruning technique[7] is used for eliminating the computations, which involve just zeros. The reference [7] illustrates its use for zero filled time sequences with decimation in frequency FlT. It can also be used with decimation in time FlT if only a part of the frequency spectrum is required. Let 2M = N be the total number of complex data points in t h e time domain. It can be shown that, with radix-2 FlT, there are M stages, each requiring N/2 butterflies. A butterfly[lO] is a one complex multiplication and two addition operation illustrated by figure 5. The multiplication factor is called the twiddle factor. Thus the total number of radix-2 butterflies will be M*2M-1. Let 2L = R be the number of frequency points required. The pruning technique[7] amounts to the elimination of the butterflies that do not affect the final results and hence not required. Thus the number of butterflies r uired at each stage will not be (N/2), but rather vary from 2L, 2L+ , 2L+2etc. until it reaches (NE)in (M-L-1) stages and then will remain the same for the remaining ( L l ) stages. The total number of butterflies (figure 5.) is given by

,E,

m
2 4

In this paper we propose a method for the direct digital calculation of the ak 's from sampled values of the voltage signal, followed by an IFL computation using the weighted summation
(9).

Digital Measurement of IFL

In this paper, we propose a direct method for digital computation of instantaneous flicker level. The method employs the following
StepS.

" i

(a) The voltage signal is sampled and converted to digital form by an analog to digital converter. The frequency of sampling should match the anti-aliasing fiiter characteristics. At a sampling rate of fs, N data points will be acquired in N/fs seconds. The equation (3) can be rewritten as (10). using a change of summationvariable k.
vi= A
[ C O ((2x/N) ~

No of bflies = 2L [ 1 + 2 + 22 + 23+...2M-L-1]+ (L-1)*2'-1

= (L+1) 2M-1- 2L

ri

9,)

X
k=l

%cos ( (2x/N) k i
r + m

+ 'pk) * C O S ( (2x/N)
+
qk
)3

ri

+ cpr]
(10)

vi= (A/2)

cos ( (21t/N)ki k=r-mk

[

xx :I::
Fig. 5. Butterfly with Twiddle factor b

where &=2 &-k=&+k=ak %+k ='4.+ ' %

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The following table lists the number of butterflies for different M and L. The last row indicates the number without pruning. M 2M

!
8

lg 256 2M

10 1024 3520 3968 4352 5120

11 2048
7104 8064 8960 11264

12 4096 14272 16256 18176 24576

The pruning technique can be applied with the split radix[8] algorithms also.

Pruned FFT for flicker computation

,-

The general pruning technique described above is for obtaining a range of frequencies at the lower end of the frequency spectrum. However, since uk for k = 1 to m is required, one needs to compute the Fourier transform Vk for k = r-m to r. The Fourier transforms from k = 0 to r-m-1 and from k = r+l to N/2 are not required. A customized pruning technique is proposed for flicker evaluation. Let the voltage be sampled at 8 times per cycle (480 H z . ) . Let the N (N/2=2M) samples obtained over a period of N/480 seconds, be used to compute the instantaneous flicker level. Normal FFT technique, with N real data will compute the spectrum for 0 to 240 Hz as N/2 complex points. A signal with a power frequency of 60 Hz., amplitude modulated at 30 H z . ,results in the frequencies 60 + 30 and 60 - 30 Hz. Since amplitude modulations from 0 to 30 Hz. is of interest, we require the spectrum between 30 and 60 Hz. (or alternatively between 60 and 90 Hz.)only. This corresponds to the points from N/16 to N/8. The figure 6 illustrates the last four stages of the pruned FFT algorithm. The required points in the spectrum are obtained as follows. (a) The N point time sequence of real values are re-arranged in a bit reversed order, as a fist step for decimation in time FFT algorithm. (b) The real sequence of N data points is split into 8 sets of N/8 points each. Any decimation in time FFT (radix-2, split radix, radix4 etc.) will transform the eight real time sequences of N/8 points each to eight complex sequences of N/16 points each. The split radix algorithm for real data by recombination [9] is one of the most efficient techniques. (c) The next stage (M-3) operates on 7N/16 complex points and yields N/4 complex points as illustrated in figure 6. The required twiddle factors for the butterfly computations (figure 5 ) are given below. b(N/8) b(N/8+1)
= a0

Unpruned FFT

U-3 th Stag.

M-2 th Stage

M-1 th Stage 2" =N/Z

Fig. 6. PrunedFFT algorithm (d) The succeeding stage (M-2) operates on N/4 complex points and yields N/8 complex points. The required twiddle factors for the butterfly computations are given below. b(3N/16) =aND b(3N/16+1) = aND+2 b(N/4-lj
= aNl-2

b(7N/16) b(7N/16+1) wb-1)

=aND = aNfi+2
= aNM-2

(e) The final stage (M-1) operates on N/8 complex points and yields the required N/16 complex points. The required twiddle factors for the butterfly computations are given below. b(5N/16) = aNfl6 b(5N/16+1) = aNfl61 b(3N/8-1)
= aNB-1

Resultswith Simulated Data

The FFT based approach for the computation of the IFL was tested with simulated data. The sampling frequency was constant at 480 H z .A 12 bit (11 bit with sign) analog to digital conversion was used. The signals were not allowed to exceed 75% of the full scale value. The number of points used for computation were 256, 512, 1024. 2048. 4096 points, which correspond to 0.533, 1.07, 2.13, 4.27 and 8.53 sec. respectively. The modulation amplitude given by UIk to produce unit level of flicker at each frequency was applied. and the flicker level was computed. The figures 7,8,9,10 and 11. show the deviations from the desired In, value of one.

=a4

b(3N/8) b(3N/8+1) b(7N/16-1) b(7N/16) b(7N/16+1)

= a0 = a4

Conclusions
" b(3N/16-1) = a b(N/4) b(N/4+1)

= aNw

= a0 =a4

= a0
= a4

Digital implementation of the analog design for flicker measurement is inefficient as regards to computation, and lacks the flexibility offered by direct digital implementation.

b(5N/16-1) = a N w where a =e-*m

The direct digital implementation proposed in t h i s paper, uses a fast Fourier transformation as the first step in the computation. A pruned FFT, customized for the flicker level computation is also proposed.

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The design of an analog or digital weighting filter is not required. The weights are applied directly on the amplitude of the respective frequency components. Hence, different weighting curves can be used with utmost flexibility. Also, the errors associated with squaring demodulation are avoided. In addition, valuable information about individual flicker frequencies are readily available. Results with simulated data indicate that the FIT approach yields sufficiently accurate results for 1024 point FFT with 480 Hz. sampling using a 12 bit A/D. Thus a value of IFLcan be obtained every 2.13 seconds. Under these conditions the deviation is less than 2.5% at flicker level of one, for all frequencies in the range of 0 . 5 Hz.to 23 Hz. A error of upto 5% is considered acceptable at such low levels of flicker. The nominal signal level is set at 75% of full scale. If a 14 bit A/D is used, the nominal signal level can be set at 20% of full scale. The flicker computation can be implemented using software or hardware DFFT.

E" (1024 pt) 2.13 sec.

-1.10 9
4

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...................

....................

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3
h 095 4 -

.9 E o.900

I , , , ,
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1....................

.............................................................

10 15 20 Frequency in Hz.

Fig. 9.Instantaneous Flicker level.

FFT (256
-1.10
rl

pt) 0.53 sec

1.10 j

FFT (2048 pt) 4.27 sec.

2! l.05
;p 1.00
3

2 0.90 0

0.95 5 10 15 20 Frequency in Hz. 25 Frequency in Hz.

Fig. 1O.Instantaneous Flicker level.

Fig. 7htantaneous Flicker level.

9
rl

FFl' (4096 pt) 8.53 sec.

1.10

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

..........

.........

Frqwncy i n Hz.
Fig. 8.InstantaneousFlicker level.

Frequency in Hz.
Fig. 11.Instantaneous Flicker level.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author wishes to acknowledge the contribution of Mr. Claude Lafond in producing the simulations. REFERENCES
[ l ] F.D. Martzloff and T M . Gruzs, "Power quality site surveys: facts, fiction and fallacies", IEEE transactions on Paver Industry Applications, Vol24, n0.6, Nov. 1988,pp 1005-1018. [2] Stanley Stokes , "Visual perception and tolerance of flicker", Utilities Coordinated Research Inc., Report for committee for project no. 10,1937. [3] M.K. Walker, "Electric utility flicker limitations", ZEEE Tramactwns on Industry Applications, Vol 15, Nov 1979, pp 644-655. [4] P.Duveau, "FlickermBtre Num6rique". Revue GtWrale d'e'lectricite'.Tome 80, no. 11. Nov 1971, pp851-853. [5] P.P. Biringer and R.L. Quinn. "Voltage flicker meters - A state of art review", Canadian Electrical Association Research Report, Project no 78-63A. [6] C. Mirra, Chairman, " Flicker measurement and evaluation", union Internationale dhxtrothermie, Groupe de travail Perturbations, Rapport 1986, Tour Atlantique, C a e x 6,92080 Paris-la-Dbfense,

[7] J.D. Markel, "FFT Pruning", IEEE Transacrions on Audio and Electroacoustics, Vol AU-19, no.4, Dec.1971, pp305-311. [8] H.V. Sorenson, "On computing the split radix FFT". IEEE Transactwns on Acoustics, speech and signal processing, Vol ASSP-34, no.1, February 1986, pp 152-156. [9] H.V. Sorenson et al, "Real valued fast Fourier transform algorithms", IEEE Transactions on Acoustics, speech and signalprocessing, Vol ASSP-35, no.6, June 1987, pp 849-863. [lo] A.V. Oppenheim and R.W. Schafer, Digital Signal Processing, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1975. Krishnaswamy Srinivasan (S'67, M'70, SM79) received h i s B.Sc. (Physics, University of Delhi) in 1962, B.E. (Electrical Engineering, 1.1.S~.Bangalore) in 1965, M.A.Sc (Power Systems) in 1967 and Ph.D. (Automatic Control) in 1970 from Univerity of Waterloo, Canada. He is with the Hydro-QuBbec utility's research t centre (IREQ) since 1972. His current mterests are in micro-computers, estimation and control applications in Power Systems. He is a member of IEEE Power and Computer Societies and is a registered professional engineer in QUBbeC.