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Harmonic and Interharmonic Measurement

According to IEEE 519 and IEC 61000-4-7
E. Gunther, Senior Member, IEEE

The standard defines the instrumentation to be used for

Abstract— IEEE Standard 519 is presently under revision
and is expected to recommend that harmonic and interharmonic
measurements be performed according to the method defined in
IEC 61000-4-7 [1]. This summary paper and the associated
presentation describe important aspects of the 61000-4-7
standard in the context of its intended use in the draft IEEE 519
standards.
Index Terms — Power quality, harmonics, standards.
emissions testing for individual pieces of equipment as well as
for the overall measurement of harmonic/interharmonic
voltages and currents in supply systems.
III. DEFINITIONS AND INDICES
The standard defines several fundamental relationships and
indices (e.g. total harmonic distortion) that are all derived
from the Fourier series using the following specific notations:

I. INTRODUCTION

P ower quality standards are developed in IEC by Study

Committee SC77A. Working Group 1 (Harmonics and
other low-frequency disturbance) is responsible for harmonic
and interharmonic emission standards that apply to individual
pieces of equipment connected to the supply network. This
same group is also responsible for defining the method of
measurement which has been standardized in IEC 61000-4-7.
In the IEEE, power quality standards are generally developed
in working groups and task forces under the Power Quality
Subcommittee of the T&D Committee and are coordinated
across IEEE societies by the IEEE SCC-22 Power Quality
Standards Coordinating Committee. The IEEE harmonic
control standard – IEEE 519 – is a jointly sponsored standard
between the T&D Committee in the Power Engineering
Society and the Industrial Power Converter Committee of the
Industry Application Society. IEEE 519 is currently being
revised and the current draft recommends that harmonic
measurements be performed according to the methods defined
in 61000-4-7. This summary paper outlines some important
aspects of 61000-4-7 and areas that are the focus in the 519
revision. Note that to avoid confusion when reading the 61000-4-7
standard, equations in this summary paper will utilize the
II. SCOPE OF IEC 61000-4-7 numbering defined in 61000-4-7.
61000-4-7 is “applicable to instrumentation intended for
measuring spectral components in the frequency range up to 9
kHz which are superimposed on the fundamental of the power IV. BASIC INSTRUMENT DESIGN
supply systems at 50 Hz and 60 Hz. For practical There are four main components of an instrument that
considerations, this standard distinguishes between complies with 61000-4-7:
harmonics, interharmonics and other components above the
harmonic frequency range, up to 9 kHz.” 1. Input circuits with anti-aliasing filter
2. A/D converter with sample-and-hold
3. Main synchronization (e.g. phase locked loop)
E. Gunther (erich@enernex.com) is with EnerNex Corporation in Knoxville, 4. DFT-processor providing the Fourier coefficients
TN.
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One of the most important aspects of the standard is the

definition of the time windows to be used to sample the
waveform prior to analyzing using the Fourier transform. In
order to facilitate an instrument design that operates in
basically the same way for 50 Hz and 60 Hz systems, the
window width is defined as 10 cycles for 50 Hz systems and
12 cycles for 60 Hz systems – basically a 200 ms window.
This results in a frequency resolution at the output of the Figure 2 – Illustration of harmonic and interharmonic
Fourier Transform of 5 Hz for both 50 Hz and 60 Hz systems. groups.
The general structure of the instrument is depicted in In order to facilitate the analysis when the mains signal is
Figure 1. This reference design provides for several outputs fluctuating, an alternative grouping method is defined by
that are defined in the standard. Output 1 is basically the raw equation (9) and depicted in Figure 3.
output of the Fourier transform (the 5 Hz resolution frequency
components at 200 ms intervals). In order to simplify the
analysis and facilitate repeatability of results, other outputs
are defined that group spectra into blocks and then apply a
smoothing function.

Figure 3 – Illustration of a harmonic subgroup and an

interharmonic centered subgroup.

A smoothing function is applied after the grouping

algorithms to provide a stable output which facilitates getting
comparable measurements between two instruments
connected to the same mains signal. This smoothing function
is a simple 1 pole low pass filter with the general form
illustrated in Figure 4. The coefficients for the filter are
dependent on the power system frequency and are defined in
the standard.

Figure 1 – General Instrument Structure

For harmonic analysis, the raw data from Output 1 is

grouped to be the sum of the squared spectral lines (the 5 Hz
bins) between adjacent harmonics centered on a specified
harmonic according to equation (8) in the standard which is
repeated here.

Figure 4 – Digital, low-pass smoothing filter

In addition to the basic calculation and analysis

For interharmonic analysis, the raw data is grouped in a
similar fashion – this time just the spectral components in
between each harmonic line. Figure 2 illustrates this grouping
method.
methodology, IEC 61000-4-7 also defined the desired
accuracy of the instrument. Two accuracy classes are defined
– Class I for cases involving contract compliance, resolving
disputes and other cases where high precision is required;
Class II for general measurement purposes. An important
principal for Class I instruments is that any two compliant
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instruments when connected to the same signals produce
matching results within the specified accuracy shown in Table
1.
Table 1 – Accuracy requirements for current, voltage and
power measurements
percentile value (i.e., that value which is exceeded for 1% of
the measurement period) should be calculated for each 24
hour period for comparison with the recommend limits in the
revision. For the Tsh interval measurements, the 95th and
99th percentile values (i.e., those value which are exceeded
for 5% and 1% of the measurement period) are calculated for
each 7 day period for comparison with the recommended
limits. These statistics should be used for both voltage and
current harmonics and interharmonics with the exception that
the 99th percentile Tsh value is not recommended for use with
voltage harmonics.

VII. REFERENCES
[1] IEC 61000 4-7, Electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) – Part 4-7: Testing
and measurement techniques – General guide on harmonics and
interharmonics measurements and instrumentation, for power supply
systems and equipment connected thereto.
[2] IEEE Std. 519-2000 Draft 0 - Recommend Practices and Requirements for
Harmonic Control in Electric Power Systems.

V. IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES
The omission of the required anti-aliasing filter defined in
the standard is one of the most often observed reasons why
harmonic / interharmonic measurements (especially current
measurements near power electronic devices) fail to compare
with a known good reference instrument. The mains
synchronization mechanism is another common source of
measurement error when not properly implemented (or
omitted).

VI. USAGE IN IEEE 519

The current draft of the IEEE 519 revision specifies the
use of the 61000-4-7 measurement methodology. 519
augments the methodology by specifying how the individual
200 ms measurement blocks are to be aggregated to provide
data for “very short time” (Tvs) and “short time” (Tsh)
harmonic measurements. The Tvs interval data is obtained by
calculating the square root of the sum of the squares of the
200 ms samples over a 3 second interval. The Tsh interval
data is obtained by calculating the square root of the sum of
the squares of 200 consecutive Tvs values.

The IEEE 519 draft also specifies how the data obtained
using the 61000-4-7 method and aggregated as described
above is to be evaluated statistically. The Tvs and Tsh values
should be accumulated over periods of one day and one week,
respectively. For Tvs interval measurements, the 99th