Power quality effect of using incandescent, fluorescent, CFL and LED lamps on utility grid

One of the major electrical load on a utility grid is industrial, street and residential lightings. To enhance the energy efficiency and as a measure of energy conservation, incandescent lamps (IL) are replaced with the modern lights. Replacing incandescent lamps with compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) and fluorescent lamp (FL) is one of the measures taken by the authorities to reduce the energy consumption and enhance energy efficiency. Both the CFLs and LEDs are the sources of harmonics as electronic circuits are used in for their ignition. These harmonic sources adversely affect other loads connected to the same bus. It also affects the grid in terms of high reactive power demand (due to poor power factor), distortion in currents and hence overall degrading the power quality. Power quality measurements such as power factor, voltage and current total harmonic distortion (THD) are done and reported in this paper. Different scenarios are considered with full and partial replacement of incandescent lamps. A comprehensive comparison between incandescent, CFL and LED are made in terms of these power quality measurements. From the result analysis, it is noted that, the CFL consumes less active power than incandescent. But, the THD is considerably higher in CFL than incandescent. While comparing LED and CFL, the power factor of LED is found poor compared to CFL. The simulation and experimental approaches are used in this work.