Power Quality Assessment of Compact Fluorescent Lamps

Abstract

Electricity consumers in Pakistan are facing long duration power outages and high energy prices. Due to increasing demand and supply gap, energy conservation policies are required to be initiated. Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs) have emerged as replacement of conventional incandescent bulbs and fluorescent lamps. Compared to conventional illumination sources CFLs have less power consumption and longer life; therefore replacement of conventional illuminators with CFLs is economically justified. Power quality degradation caused by nonlinear loads badly affects power system efficiency. Operating life of consumer appliances and power system components is also affected by poor power quality. CFLs being nonlinear loads will inject harmonics in power system. In this research work, harmonic distortion and power factor of different CFLs is performed. Fluke 43B Power Quality Analyzer is used to measure Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) for current and voltage of five different brands of CFLs used in Pakistan. Experimental results show that power factor of all analyzed CFLs is poor in the range of 0.57 to 0.62 lagging. THD for current is observed very high in excess of 71% whereas THD values for voltage lie between 5.7 to 8.5%, which is also greater than acceptable value of 5% as set by IEEE standard 519-1992