GENERIC ALGORITHM TO SELECT BUILDING-LIGHTING TECHNOLOGIES FOR MINIMIZING TOTAL HARMONIC DISTORTION

The proliferation of nonlinear loads has raised new concerns about the power quality in commercial buildings. Higher cost of repair, and the reduction in average life of equipment, both on the supply and demand sides, as a result of poor power quality cannot be overlooked or ignored. As lighting loads are the largest fraction of the load in most commercial buildings, a small increase in their harmonic distortion levels may jeopardize the other loads in the building or loads connected to the same utility bus. In this paper, we present a generic algorithm to select energy-efficient lighting technologies that will minimize harmonic distortion levels in a building. Results from the algorithm are validated on a building-load model to test its accuracy.