Reducing the Effects of Power Harmonics on Distribution Transformers Using Simplex Optimization Technique: A Recent Approach

There have been incessant power failures in our power network, which has been attributed to over current, over-voltage, and harmonic distortion caused by ripples to mention a few. Here we demonstrate that the effects of power harmonics on our distribution transformers could be minimized using an optimization approach. A 500KVA distribution Transformer was chosen for this study; the harmonic distortion data was collected from the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) formally called National Electric Power Authority (NEPA). The harmonic mean was determined from the harmonic distortion data obtained; optimizing the mean from the collected data, training the optimized result to minimize harmonic in power distribution transformer, designing a Simulink model for mitigating the resultant effect of harmonics which are the sinusoidal components of a complex wave, using simplex optimization technique. It is seen that when the optimization technique is introduced we have a value of 69% better than the conventional method like proportional integral derivative (PID) in terms of minimizing harmonic in power transformer. Maximizing the objective function subject to two constraints gave a reduced value of 14.33W which further minimizes the overcurrent and improved the overall power factor. The results obtained show that harmonics were reduced from 14.8333Kw to 3.7kW; which shows that the result of optimized harmonics yielded a considerable reduction in overcurrent and overvoltage, hence a stable power system.