Impact of Road Tunnel Consumption on the Power Quality, Power Factor and Reactive Power Flow

In recent years there has been an increase in reactive power flow from lower voltage levels to higher voltage levels due to changes in the power grid. Road tunnels also contribute to the reactive power flow by their nature of loading. Tunnel consumption is mostly made up of lighting sources. Currently, the most commonly used lighting is LED-based, which includes current sources with non-linear volt-ampere characteristics and high capacitance. As a result, they draw distorted current from the grid and also generate reactive power to the grid. This paper analyzes the overall power quality based on STN EN 50 160, the total harmonic distortion of current, power factor, and reactive power of the road tunnel. The paper especially shows the effect of harmonic distortion of current on the difference between the fundamental harmonic power factor and the total power factor, and also the difference between the reactive power of the fundamental harmonic and the total reactive power.