Power system harmonic reduction using shunt active filter

IJRET: International Journal of Research in Engineering and Technology eISSN: 2319-1163 | pISSN: 2321-7308
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Volume: 03 Issue: 04 | Apr-2014, Available @ http://www.ijret.org 935
POWER SYSTEM HARMONIC REDUCTION USING SHUNT ACTIVE
FILTER
Shiuly Mukherjee1
, Nitin Saxena2
, A K Sharma3
1
Jabalpur Engineering College, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, India
2
3
Abstract
This paper shows the method of improving the power quality using shunt active power filter. The proposed topic comprises of PI
controller, filter hysteresis current control loop, dc link capacitor. The switching signal generation for filter is from hysteresis current
controller techniques. With the all these element shunt active power filter reduce the total harmonic distortion. This paper represents
the simulation and analysis of the using three phase three wire system active filter to compensate harmonics .The proposed shunt
active filter model uses balanced non-linear load. This paper successfully lowers the THD within IEEE norms and satisfactorily works
to compensate current harmonics. The model is made in MATLAB / SIMULINK and successfully reduces the harmonic in the source
current
Keywords-Harmonics, shunt active filters, power quality.
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1. INTRODUCTION
Shunt technology has brought drastic increase in the use of
power electronic equipments resulting in the increase of
harmonics in source current or ac mains current. intensive use
of power converters, various non linear loads and increasing
use of office equipments like computers ,faxes ,printers are
reasons for the increasing harmonics resulting in deterioration
if sources current and source voltage. Harmonics causes very
serious damage in powers system. Problems like resonance;
overheating of neutral wire, low power factor, damaging
microprocessor based equipment. Traditionally, L-C passive
filters were used to solve the problem of harmonics to filter
out current harmonics to get sinusoidal supply current .Passive
filters are classified as single tune filter and high pass filter.
Passive filters have following disadvantages
a) I resonance with the source impedance.
b) fixed compensation, large configuration size.
To overcome the problems of passive filters, active filters
were developed and used to solve the problem of harmonics
the technology of the active filter has improved a lot thereby
giving very good results to reduce the problem of harmonics.
The power semiconductor devices improved the active filters a
lot. Active filters solve the problem of harmonic in industrial
area as well as utilityPower distribution. The active power
filter working performance is based on the techniques used for
the generation of reference current. With the development
various technologies results the lowering of harmonics below
5% as specifies by IEEE. Efficient ways of generating
reference current are p-q theory, synchronous reference
current theory (SRF method). In this paper SRF method has
been used. We have many current control technologies for
active power filter, but theHysteresis current controller is
proved to be very efficient in terms of fast current
controllability and it also very easy to apply when compared
to other method like sinusoidal PWM. We can detect
harmonics in two ways or two main forms first in time domain
and second in the frequency domain the paper deals with Fast
Fourier Transform (FFT) is used to find harmonics in
frequency domain. Other frequency domain techniques are
discrete Fourier transform (DFT); recursive discrete Fourier
transform (RDFT).our main target is to reduce THD of supply
current with the help of hysteresis band current controller.
There are two type of hysteresis Current controller namely,
adaptive hysteresis current controller and fixed band current
controller. Our paper deals with the use of fixed band
hysteresis current controller. The model of shunt active power
filter using hysteresis current controller has been used in mat
lab/simulink. Results have been successfully retrieved from
model and followed by conclusion.
2. SHUNT ACTIVE POWER FILTER
The large scale use of power electronics equipment has led to
increase in harmonics in the power system. The nonlinear
loads generate harmonic current which distorts the voltage
waveform at PCC. These current harmonics will result in a
power factor reduction, decrease in efficiency, power system
voltage fluctuations and communications interference [3]. So
harmonics can be considered as a pollutant which pollutes the
entire power system. Traditionally a bank of tuned LC filters

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was used as a solution for the problems caused by the system
harmonics, since they are easy to design, have simple
structure, low cost and high efficiency. [7] Phase advancers
synchronous capacitors etc. were also employed for the power
system quality enhancement. However traditional controllers
have many drawbacks. It provides only fixed compensation,
generates resonance problems and are bulky in size [6]. To
overcome these disadvantages, active power filters are
introduced which compensate for the current harmonics and
reduces the total harmonic distortion. The SAPF is connected
in parallel with the line through a coupling inductor. Its main
power circuit consists of a three phase three-leg current
controlled voltage source inverter with a DC link capacitor.
An active power filter operates by generating a compensating
current with 180 degree phase opposition and injects it back to
the line so as to cancel out the current harmonics introduced
by the nonlinear load. This will thus suppress the harmonic
content present in the line and make the current waveform
sinusoidal. So the process comprises of detecting the harmonic
component present in the line current, generating the reference
current, producing the switching pulses for the power circuit,
generating a compensating current and injecting it back to the
line. In this paper a nonlinear load supplied by a three phase
voltage source is projected. An active power filter is
introduced in parallel to this system for the compensation of
current harmonics caused by the nonlinear loads. Here SRF
algorithm is used for the reference current extraction from the
distorted source current, which is being explained in section II.
The switching pulses for the power circuit are generated using
the Hysteresis Current Control technique as explained in
section III and is found to be very effective. The simulation
results are projected in section IV. Figure 1 shows a three
phase shunt active power filter.
Fig 1 three phase shunt active filter
2.1 Working Principle of Shunt APF
The schematic diagram of the single phase load compensator
is shown in Figure 25. In this diagram a voltage source is
supplying a load that could be nonlinear as well. The point of
connection of the load and the source is the point of common
coupling (PCC). Since there is no feeder joining the source
and the load, we shall designate the source to be stiff. Here the
compensator consists of an H-bridge inverter and an interface
inductor (Lf). The resistance Rf represents the resistance of
the interface inductor due to its finite Q-factor as well as the
losses in the inverter. One end of the compensator is
connected at the PCC through the interface inductor while the
other end is connected with the load ground. The dc side of the
compensator is supplied by a dc capacitor Cdc. The inverter is
expected to be controlled to maintain a voltage Vdc across the
capacitor. Let us assume that the load is nonlinear and draws a
load current has a poor power factor. The instantaneous load
current then can be decomposed as
iL = iLp + iLq + iLh …(1)
Where iLp and iLq are respectively the real and reactive parts
of the current required by the load and iLh is the harmonic
current drawn by the load. The purpose of the compensator is
to inject current ic such that it cancels out the reactive and
harmonic parts of the load current.
Now applying KCL at the PCC we get
iL = is + ic => is = iL – ic …(2)
We assume that the compensator operates in a hysteresis
current control loop in which the compensator current tracks a
reference current ic*. Let us now choose this reference current
as
ic* = iLq + iLh …(3)
If the inverter accurately tracks this reference current, then the
source current will be equal to the unity power factor current
drawn by the load. Since the compensator does not draw any
real current, the average power consumed by the compensator
is zero.
Fig 2: Basic Scheme of shunt active filter
2.2 Implementation
The hysteresis band current control (HBCC) technique is used
for pulse generation in current controlled VSIs. The control
method offers good stability, gives a very fast response,

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provides good accuracy and has got a simple operation [5].
The HBCC technique employed in an active power filter for
the control of line current is shown in Figure 3. It consists of a
hysteresis band surrounding the generated error current. The
current error is obtained by subtracting the actual filter current
from the reference current. The reference current used here is
obtained by the SRF method as discussed earlier which is
represented as Iabc*. The actual filter current is represented
asIfabc. The error signal is then fed to the relay with the
desired hysteresis band to obtain the switching pulses for the
inverter.
Fig 3: Hysteresis band current controller.
The operation of APF depends on the sequence of pulse
generated by the controller. Figure 4 shows the simulation
diagram of the hysteresis current controller.A band is set
above and below the generated error signal. Whenever this
signal crosses the upper band, the output voltage changes so as
to decrease the input current and whenever the signal crosses
the lower band, the output voltage changes to increase the
input current. Accordingly switching signals are generated. [5]
Fig 4: Simulation diagram of hysteresis current control.
The switching signals thus generated are fed to the power
circuit which comprises of a three phase three leg VSI with a
DC link capacitor across it. Based on these switching signals
the inverter generates compensating current in phase
opposition to the line current. The compensating current is
injected back into the power line at the PCC and thus
suppressing the current harmonics present in the line [1]. The
overall simulation block diagram is shown in Figure 5.
Fig 5: simulation diagram of shunt active filter
3. SIMULATION RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The harmonic current compensation is implemented in a three-
phase power system using a shunt active power filter. The rms
value of source voltage of the system is set as 480V and a
combination of three-phase universal bridge rectifier with an
RLC load across it constitutes the nonlinear load which
introduces the harmonics into the system. Table 1 shows the
various circuit parameters and design specifications used in
this simulation. The source current waveform without filter in
a-phase is shown in Figure 6. The Total Harmonic Distortion
(THD) spectrum in the system without filter is shown in
Figure 7, which indicate a THD of 25.75%. The compensating
current waveform in a phase is illustrated in Figure 8. The
source current after the injection of compensating current is
shown in Figure 9. The THD with active power filter included
is observed to be 4.87% which is within the allowable
harmonic limit. Figure 10 shows the THD spectrum with
active power filter in the circuit.
Fig 6 Load current of the phase “a”

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Fig 7 Source current when the passive filter is connected
Fig 8 Source current when the active filter is connected
Fig 9: THD spectrum without filter
Fig 10: THD Spectrum with active power filter.
4. CONCLUSIONS
The SAPF explained in this paper compensate the line current
harmonics generated due to the nonlinear loads in the system.
HBCC technique used for the switching pulse generation was
found to be effective and its validity is proved based on
simulation results. Thus SAPF has been proved to be effective
to keep the harmonic content in power lines within the
permissible limit of IEEE standards.
REFERENCES
[1]. S. Sivanagaraju, and V.C.Veera Reddy(2011), “Design of
Shunt Active Power Filter to eliminate the harmonic currents
and to compensate the reactive power under distorted and or
imbalanced source voltages in steady state”, IJETTVol. 2
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[2]. Y. P. Obulesh and Y. KusumaLatha(2011), “Control
strategy for 3phase shunt active power filter with minimum
current measurements”, IJECE
[3]. A. Chandra and B. Singh (1999), “A Review on Active
Filters for Power Quality Improvement”, IEEE Trans. on IET,
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[4]. Kamal Al-Haddad andNassar M (2000),“Modeling and
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[14]. MATLAB: High-Performance Numeric Computation
and Visualization Software – Reference Guide, The
MathWorks Inc., April 1993.
[15]. SIMULINK: The Dynamic System Simulation Software-
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Power system harmonic reduction using shunt active filter

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