Tutorial - Pedro Ramos

TUTORIAL

Pedro M. Ramos

Instituto Superior Técnico - University of Lisboa, Portugal

Power quality (PQ) monitoring and measurements are crucial for the stability, reliability, and efficiency of electrical power systems. PQ events can cause equipment failures, increased operational costs and system downtime. Disturbances such as interruptions, voltage sags, swells, harmonics, transients, and flicker can disrupt operations and damage electrical equipment. These disturbances may originate from sources such as load switching, lightning strikes, faulty wiring, nonlinear loads, and fluctuations in supply voltage. Monitoring these issues allows industries, utilities, and businesses to maintain smooth operation, protect sensitive equipment, and comply with international power quality standards. Power quality analyzers monitor and register PQ disturbances/events over time, providing insights into power quality trends. Smart meters, increasingly used in modern grids, are also beginning to provide real-time power quality monitoring. These measurement techniques can play a crucial role in identifying power quality issues before they cause system/equipment failures.

This presentation describes our research in the last 20 years in PQ monitoring and embedded measurement systems for PQ assessment. Initially focus was centered on the construction of a comprehensive database of real measured PQ events. The database was built using multiple computer-based systems, commercial data acquisition boards and custom voltage/current sensor modules. In parallel, innovative algorithms were developed for the detection and characterization of PQ events. The next stage dealt with the development and deployment of embedded measurement devices capable of real-time detection of PQ events, their characterization and logging. More recently machine learning based solutions for detection and characterization of PQ events have been used.

Pedro M. Ramos received the Diploma, MSc. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) from Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Technical University of Lisbon (UTL) now University of Lisbon (UL), Portugal, in 1995, 1997 and 2001. Associate Professor with habilitation at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering from IST, UL, and member of the teaching and research staff since 1999. Senior researcher of the Instrumentation and Measurements Research Group at Instituto de Telecomunicações (IT). Current research interests include power quality monitoring and measurements, impedance measurements, impedance spectroscopy, non-destructive testing and battery impedance spectroscopy. IEEE Senior Member and Member of IMEKO-TC4 Measurement of Electrical Quantities. Editor of Measurement from Elsevier and Metrology from MDPI.