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Overview of application
IEC 555-2 (1982) is a regulatory standard that
pertains to ac line disturbances, namely current
harmonics. These current harmonics are caused by
connecting household appliances and similar elec-
trical equipment to a 230 V, 50 Hz ac mains. This
standard establishes limits on the amount of har-
monic energy electrical equipment can inject on the
ac line to ensure that other devices connected to
the ac power distribution system are not adversely
affected. The generated current harmonics can vary
or fluctuate with time (due to electronic products
that cycle the ac line), or can have steadystate
(quasi-stationary) characteristics.
When testing electronic equipment with a single
phase ac input for compliance to the quasi-stationary
part of this standard, it is necessary to have an ac
source with low distortion and low output imped-
ance to avoid introducing unacceptable measure-
ment errors. The measurement instrument must
use the required Rectangular (or Hanning) meas-
urement window and must have the capability to
return measured current amplitude data up to
the 40th harmonic of the fundamental.
Agilent 6800 series features used
• RMS Voltage and frequency control
• Measurement window control
• Harmonic current measurement
Advantages/benefits of the Agilent 6800 series
• The 6800 series provides a “One-Box” Solution,
so a separate power analyzer is not required for
quasi-stationary harmonic measurements.
• The 6800 series provides an IEC 555 compliant
Rectangular measurement window built into the
standard unit.
• The low distortion, low output impedance and
16-bit measurement accuracy of the 6800 series
provide full compliance to the measurement
requirements.
Implementation details
How the 6800 series implements IEC 555 quasi-stationary
harmonic current measurements
The output of the ac power source/analyzer is
set to 230 V and 50 Hz. The measurement window
is changed from the default value (KBessel) to
the Rectangular window. To perform the harmonic
analysis, the ac power source/analyzer is sent a
command to measure an array of harmonic current
amplitudes. This array of current harmonics can
be transferred to the computer for PASS/FAIL
analysis versus the limits of the standard.
Application 3:
Performing IEC 555-2 Measurements