Power Quality Improvement Using Hybrid Filters: November 2016
Power Quality Improvement Using Hybrid Filters: November 2016
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ABSTRACT
This paper presents mitigation of power quality problems introduced by nonlinear loads. Through the expansion of modern
industrial technology enormous number of non-linear loads are used in power system, which causes harmonic distortion. At
the same time the power quality and safe operation becomes substandard. Therefore alleviation of harmonics is very essential
under this situation. A Hybrid power filter constituting a series active filter and a passive filter coupled in parallel with the load
is proposed to improve the power quality. To validate the developed theoretical analysis, the control strategy is verified by
means of an experimental prototype using Multisim software. Shunt, hybrid and series active power filters are described
showing their compensation characteristics and principles of operation. The results to verify the effectiveness of the proposed
Key Words: Passive Filters, Active Filters, Hybrid Filters, Power quality, nonlinear loads.
I. INTRODUCTION
The existence of harmonics in the power electrical systems is the key source of the electrical wave pollution that course so
many problems. The indiscriminate escalation of non-linear loads has given rise to research into new compensation equipment
centered on power electronics. The core design target for this system is the eradication of the harmonic present in the system
and lessening of reactive power. Depending on the application type, series or parallel configurations or combinations of active
Most of the power electronic equipment are used in industrial and domestic purposes, the equipment (ac drives, electronic
ballast) have significant impact on the quality of supplied voltage and have increased the harmonic current pollution of the
distribution systems. They have many negative effects on the power system equipment’s and customers, such as additional
losses in overhead and underground cables, transformers and rotating machines, problems in the operation of the protection
systems, over voltages ,error of measuring instruments. This has necessitated improvement on the compensation characteristics
Passive filters have been used traditionally for mitigating distortion due to harmonic current in industrial power systems, but
they have many drawbacks such as resonance problems dependency of their performance on the system impedance, absorption
of harmonic current in nonlinear loads, which could lead to further harmonic propagation through the power system [3].To
overcome such problems active power filters are introduced, they have no such drawbacks like passive filters, they inject
harmonic voltage or current with appropriate magnitudes and phase angle into the system and cancel harmonics of nonlinear
loads. It however have such drawback like high initial cost and high power losses due to which it limits its applications
especially with high power ratings [4]. To minimize these limitations, we propose a hybrid power filters which is cost effective
harmonic compensation particularly in high power nonlinear loads and finally a result for dynamic compensation, obtained
from the simulated setup will be presented. Passive power filters, Shunt active power filters, Series active power filters and
Hybrid power filters topologies and schemes will be presented and analyzed. The control scheme characteristics for both
schemes will be discussed. Finally steady state and transient results for dynamic compensation obtained from simulated under
LITERATURE REVIEW
International standards define power quality as the physical characteristics of the electrical supply provided under normal
operating conditions that do not disrupt or disturb the customer’s processes. Therefore, a power quality problem exists if any
voltage, current or frequency deviation results in a failure or in a bad operation of customer’s equipment [5]. However, it is
important to notice that the quality of power supply implies basically voltage quality and supply reliability. A voltage quality
problem relates to any failure of equipment due to deviations of the line voltage from its nominal characteristics, and the
supply reliability is characterized by its adequacy (ability to supply the load), security (ability to withstand sudden disturbances
such as system faults) and availability (focusing especially on long interruptions)of the more important international standards
define power quality as the physical characteristics of the electrical supply provided under normal operating conditions that do
not disrupt or disturb the customer’s processes. Therefore, a power quality problem exists if any voltage, current or frequency
deviation results in a failure or in a bad operation of customer’s equipment. However, it is important to notice that the quality
of power supply implies basically voltage quality and supply reliability. A voltage quality problem relates to any failure of
equipment due to deviations of the line voltage from its nominal characteristics, and the supply reliability is characterized by
its adequacy (ability to supply the load), security (ability to withstand sudden disturbances such as system faults) and
Power quality is defined by the parameters that express reactive power, harmonic pollution and load unbalance. The best ideal
electrical supply would be a sinusoidal voltage waveform which consist of magnitude and frequency, but in reality due to non-
zero impedance of the supply systems the large variety of loads may be encountered and of other phenomena such transients
and outages, the reality is often different. If the power quality of the network is good, then any load connected to it will run
satisfactorily and efficiently. Installation during cost will be minimal. If the power quality of the network is bad, then loads
connected to it will fail or will have a reduced lifetime, and the efficiency of the electrical installation will be reduced. The cost
of installation and running will be high and operation may not be possible at all [7].
Poor Power Quality can be described as any event related to the electrical network that ultimately results in financial loss. A
possible consequence of poor power quality includes the followings: Unexpected power supply failures (breakers tripping),
Equipment failure or malfunctioning, Damage to sensitive equipment (PCs, production line control systems), Electronic
communication interferences, Increase of system losses and Penalties imposed by utilities because of site pollutes the supply
network [8][9]
HARMONIC DISTORTION
The harmonic pollution is generally characterized by the total Harmonic Distortion or THD which is by definition equal to the
ratio of the RMS harmonic content to the fundamental. Harmonic is a signal or wave whose frequency is an integral (whole-
number) multiple of the frequency of some reference signal or wave. The term can also refer to the ratio of the frequency of
Effects of harmonics
The main effects of voltage and current harmonics within the power system are[11]: Amplification of harmonic levels resulting
from series and parallel resonance; Reduction of efficiency of power generation, transmission, and utilization; Aging of the
installation of electrical plant components and has a consequence the shortening of their useful life; Plant mal-operation;
Malfunctioning and failure of electronic equipment; Overheating and failure of electric motors; Overloading, overheating and
failure of power factor correction capacitors. Resonance due to interaction of capacitors with harmonics; Overloading and
overheating of distribution transformers and neutral conductors; Excessive measurement errors in metering equipment;
Spurious operation of fuses, circuit-breakers and other protective equipment; Voltage glitches in computers systems resulting
in lost data. Excessive flicker on VDU’s; Electromagnetic interference with TV, radio, communication & telephone systems; a
Damage and disruption to standby generators and associated AVR control equipment; Interference with ripple control system
[12]
Harmonic sources
The main sources of voltage and current harmonics within the power system are the nonlinear loads [13] listed below among
others:-Computers, fax machines, photocopiers, TV’s, VCR’s, etc. Lighting dimmers & electronic ballasts for high efficiency
lighting. Single-phase AC & DC drives. Ultra-violet disinfection systems. UPS systems. Arc furnaces & SCR temperature
In this project, we concentrate on harmonics as one of the major contributors of poor Electrical power quality and thus
concentrate more on methods of harmonic mitigation, there are two approaches to the harmonic mitigation.
The first approach is called load conditioning, which ensures that the equipment is less sensitive to power disturbances,
The other solution is to install line conditioning systems that suppress or counteracts the power system disturbances [14].
These include:
Among active filter topologies, shunt active power filter (SAPF) with its naive implementation is paid more attentions in both
time and frequency domains to facilitate the compensation of harmonic currents and reactive power of non-linear loads
[15].Shunt active power filter compensate current harmonics by injecting equal-but-opposite harmonic compensating current.
In this case the shunt active power filter operates as a current source injecting the harmonic components generated by the load
but phase shifted by 180 degrees. This principle is applicable to any type of load considered as harmonic source. Moreover,
with an appropriate control scheme, the active power filter can also compensate the load power factor [16]. In this way, the
power distribution system sees the non-linear load and the active power filter as an ideal resistor. The current compensation
The current reference circuit generates the reference currents required to compensate the load current harmonics and reactive
power, and also try to maintain constant the dc voltage across the two electrolytic capacitors. There are many possibilities to
Shunt active power filters are normally implemented with pulse-width modulated voltage source inverters. In this type of
applications, the PWM-VSI operates as a current controlled voltage source. Traditionally, 2 levels PWM-VSI have been used
to implement such system [19]. However, in the past years multilevel PWM voltage source inverters have been proposed to
The use of VSI connected in cascade is an interesting alternative to compensate high power non-linear load. The use of two
PWM-VSI of different rated power allows the use of different switching frequencies, reducing switching stresses and
Fig. 2- Shunt active power filter topologies implemented with PWM voltage-source inverters
Passive filters with low impedances at the dominant harmonic frequencies were used to reduce the harmonics for the
consideration of hardware cost. However, these circuit configurations have several drawbacks. The passive filters with fixed
compensation characteristics are ineffective to filter the current harmonics. The series or parallel resonance does happen
The developments and applications of active filters have been researched because of the increasing concern of the power
quality at the consumer or distribution side. Active filters overcome the drawbacks of passive filters by using the switching
mode power converter to perform the harmonic current elimination. Shunt active filters are developed to suppress the harmonic
currents and compensate reactive power simultaneously. The shunt active filters are operated as a current source parallel with
the nonlinear load. [20] The power converter of active filter is controlled to generate a compensation current which is equal-
but-opposite the harmonic and reactive currents generated from the nonlinear load. In this situation, the mains current is
EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
A single-phase VSI is employed in the hybrid active filter to perform harmonic suppression and dc voltage regulation. For
harmonic suppression, the power converter of active filter is represented as a harmonic resistor to reduce the mains harmonic
current.
Where:
The active converter is operated as a harmonic resistor at the harmonic frequency, the equivalent mains impedance at the
harmonic frequency is increased such that the harmonic current flowing into the mains is decreased because the VSI is
operated as a harmonic resistor.Harmonic real power will be consumed in the VSI and the dc-bus voltage of active filter will
be fluctuated by this real power and in order to achieve a constant dc-link voltage of VSI, this energy must be sent to the mains
by the inverter. At this condition, the dc capacitor of VSI is operated as a buffer to transfer the absorbed harmonic real po wer
into the fundamental real power to the mains. A fundamental voltage component of VSI must be generated and in phase with
the fundamental current of hybrid active filter in order to send a real power to the mains.
However, the mains harmonic current is not zero due to the finite harmonic resistor. The mains harmonic current and filter
The mains harmonic current is approximately equal to zero and filter harmonic current is equal-but-opposite the harmonic
current of nonlinear load. This means that the most of harmonic currents generated from the nonlinear load are blocked by the
equivalent harmonic resistor and flowed into the passive filter. Only a small part of nonlinear harmonic current flows into
the ac source.
The total harmonic distortion (THD) of mains current is reduced. The nonlinear load current suppression can be performed by
LC series-type low pass filter is used while a capacitor has been used with an active power filter in order to reduce the rating
of the active filter. However, the capacitor has a fixed amplitude-frequency characteristic when the value is fixed. Normally,
the impedance of a capacitor is neither high enough at the mains frequency or low enough at harmonic frequencies. That is, the
capacitor cannot prevent the fundamental current and may block some main harmonics like 3rd, 5th and 7th that are produced
In order to simplify the calculation of the L and C values, two parameters, Q and must be specified in advance, where Q is
M=
Thus and which is the third harmonic (we consider 3rd harmonic because it’s the most
At this point we need to the harmonic of interest (3rd harmonic) from the source current and use it to produce the equivalent
output voltage that is used to drive the pulse width modulator (PWM) to produce signals which goes to the switches
of the active filter. Since capacitive reactance decreases with frequency, the RC circuit shown discriminates against high
frequencies. The circuit is an AC voltage divider with an output which falls off at high frequencies at the rate of 6 dB per
octave.
frequency of 50Hz
Therefore ;
If we take R= 1, then C=
and C =3µF
RESULTS.
The passive filter is operated and the harmonics are therefore the third harmonic current is eliminated basically the passive
filter. The mains current contains some high frequency harmonic currents.
R1 L2
2Ω 0.03mH
C1
7.5µF
D1 D4
1N4148 1N4148
C2 R2
V1 115µF 37Ω
L1
150mH
120 Vrms
60 Hz
0° D2 D3
1N4148 1N4148
2.0A
1.0A
0A
-1.0A
-2.0A
0s 10ms 20ms 30ms 40ms 50ms 60ms
-I(C1)
Time
Fig 7. The harmonic (ih) current with only passive filter operational.
Fig 8. The Frequency spectrum in the source current with passive filters only
R1 L1
V1 D7 D9
10kΩ 150µH 1N5820 1N5820
120 Vrms
60 Hz C5
I1 10nF R5
0°
1mA D8 D10
60 Hz 1N5820 1N5820 10kΩ
R2 0°
10kΩ
R3
V2
C1 50kΩ 12 V
150µF 70%
Key=A
U3 U2 D5
1N5820 D4 1N5820
100kΩ 1N5820
Key=AD1
IRFZ46N IRFZ46N
R6 C4
D2 50% 0.1µF C6
1N5820 10nF
VCC
U4 U5
D3 D6
RST OUT 1N5820 1N5820
DIS
IRFZ46N
THR IRFZ46N
TRI
CON
555_VIRTUAL GND
28.86kΩ
10nF Timer R1 U1
C
IRFZ46N
400V
200V
0V
-200V
-400V
0s 10ms 20ms 30ms 40ms 50ms 60ms
V(L1:1)
Time
Fig 11. Source current (is) with only active power filter operational.
In this case both the active power filter and passive power filter are integrated together as shown below
R1 L1
V1 D7 D9
10kΩ 150µH 1N5820 1N5820
120 Vrms
60 Hz C5
I1 10nF R5
0° C3
150µF
1mA D8 D10
60 Hz 1N5820 1N5820 10kΩ
R2 0°
10kΩ
R3 R7
V2 10kΩ
C1 50kΩ 12 V
150µF 70%
Key=A
U3 U2 D5
1N5820 D4 1N5820
100kΩ 1N5820
Key=AD1
IRFZ46N IRFZ46N
R6 C4
D2 50% 0.1µF C6
1N5820 10nF
VCC
U4 U5
D3 D6
RST OUT 1N5820 1N5820
DIS
IRFZ46N
THR IRFZ46N
TRI
CON
555_VIRTUAL GND
28.86kΩ
10nF Timer R1 U1
C
IRFZ46N
80mA
40mA
0A
-40mA
-80mA
0s 10ms 20ms 30ms 40ms 50ms 60ms
I(V11)
Time
Fig 14. Source current (is) with adopted hybrid active power filter operational.
Analysis of results shows the current waveforms that are far from the sinusoidal waveform, this is due to harmonic currents
introduced to the power supply system by the nonlinear load i.e. Rectifier. If the load was linear such as a resistive load, the
source current, (Is) waveform would be sinusoidal and corrupted as in this case. Fig 8 is the frequency spectrum in the source
current (Is) with only passive filter operational. Its analysis show that there is a substantial amount of harmonic currents,
especially the third harmonic, that gets to the mains supply even when the LC-passive filter is used in attempt to eliminate the
harmonics. These results shows beyond all doubts that its factual that nonlinear loads have a very high potential to introduce
harmonic currents to the mains and use of passive filters alone is not sufficient to protect this danger. The results obtained
above are those of simulation when only an active filter is employed. The source current in this case is sinusoidal wave and its
frequency spectrum analysis shows minimal amounts of harmonic components. This shows that active power filters are good
in eliminating harmonics originating from nonlinear load. But the bone of contention is the power ratings of the mosfets that
have to be employed in the active power filter! It has to be very high and this pushes us to the establishment of the hybrid
active power filter. The results obtained when the hybrid active power filter is employed are also shown. It is again clear that
the amount of harmonic current in this case is almost negligible. It is clear, from the results, that the harmonic currents
generated by the nonlinear load are blocked by the equivalent resistor of the active filter and flowed into the passive filter.
From the simulation results shown, the mains current contains only a small compared with that of the when only the LC-
passive filter is in operation. When only a passive filter is in operation, it is tuned at the dominant frequency (150Hz) and thus
used to filter the lower order third harmonic. The current distortion is thus observed in the mains current.
The Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) of the line current can be approximated as below
100% =7.698%
Where; THD is the measure of closeness in the shape between a waveform and its fundamental component.
From the simulation where the hybrid active filter is operational, the nonlinear current harmonics are almost suppressed by the
active filter as shown. The mains current is a sinusoidal wave. The value of THD of the mains current if calculated would be
far much lower compared to the one calculated above. (Approximately 2%).
The power factor of the system is also improved to a range above 0.95.
CONCLUSION.
In this paper the hybrid active power filter has been presented. The configuration uses an LC-type passive filter and an active
filter. Its control strategy to suppress the harmonic current from the mains and to regulate the dc-link voltage of the power
converter has successfully been presented. To suppress the harmonic component of nonlinear load the impedance variation
method is used to generate the equivalent output voltage of the active filter. A dc-link voltage controller is employed to
compensate the converter losses and to supply the necessary fundamental real power to the mains due to the absorbed
harmonic real power. It has been confirmed by analysis and simulation together with analysis of results obtained that the
harmonic compensation performance is reasonable, and the required rating of the active filter can be reduced maximally.
Comparison between this configuration and the existing ones indicates with clarity that this configuration is superior compared
to the existing ones on the compensation performance and ratings reduction. The simulation shows that it’s effective in
eliminating the harmonics. The proposed control scheme can be also applied to the three-phase system with the synchronous
reference system to draw the balanced three-phase line current. The computer simulations and the experimental results can be
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