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Aug 18, 2026 - These stop your charger catching fire



What is dirty power, where do electrical harmonics come from, and how do we stop them getting onto the electricity grid?
I`m at an LCC HVDC converter station taking a close look at the enormous harmonic filters used to clean up the AC waveform produced by the converter.
We look at what harmonics actually are, why higher-frequency currents can cause additional heating and losses, and how capacitor banks, air-core reactors and damping resistors are combined to create passive harmonic filters.
I`ll explain why different frequencies see different impedances, how LC resonance lets us make a filter "attractive" to particular harmonics, and the difference between single, double, triple-tuned and C-type filters.
We`ll also look at some of the less obvious engineering around these enormous filters, including why metallic structures around air-core reactors need careful consideration and why harmonic filters are particularly important at an LCC HVDC converter station.
Finally, there`s a useful bit of engineering synergy: LCC converters consume large amounts of reactive power, while the enormous capacitor banks needed for harmonic filtering can also provide reactive power to the AC system.
⚡ In this video:
• What dirty power and harmonics are
• Fundamental frequency and harmonic orders
• Why harmonics cause additional losses and heating
• Skin effect and eddy-current losses
• How passive harmonic filters work
• Capacitors, reactors and damping resistors
• LC resonance and filter tuning
• Single, double and triple-tuned filters
• C-type harmonic filters
• Air-core reactors
• LCC HVDC characteristic harmonics
• Reactive power and LCC converters
• Why converter stations need such enormous filter banks