  Power quality monitoring has become a vital need in modern power systems
owing to the need for agile operation and troubleshooting scheme. On the other
hand, the nature of load in modern power system is changing in many ways.
Digital loads, which are mostly relied on power electronic equipment, may
distort the quality of power flowing through the network. Moreover, one of the
most critical objectives of smart grids is to improve quality of services
delivered to customers, alongside with security, reliability and efficiency. To
this end, a novel method based on compressive sensing is proposed in this paper
to detect the source and the magnitude of the harmonics. The method takes
advantages of compressive sensing theory in such a way that a real-time
monitoring of harmonic distortion is obtained with a limited number of
measurements. The efficacy of the method is checked by means of various
simulations on IEEE 118 bus test system. The results show the capabilities of
the method in both noisy and noise-free conditions.
