Suppression of line voltage related distortion in current controlled grid connected inverters

The influence of selected control strategies on the level of low-order current harmonic distortion generated by an inverter connected to a distorted grid is investigated through a combination of theoretical and experimental studies. A detailed theoretical analysis, based on the concept of harmonic impedance, establishes the suitability of inductor current feedback versus output current feedback with respect to inverter power quality. Experimental results, obtained from a purpose-built 500-W, three-level, half-bridge inverter with an L-C-L output filter, verify the efficacy of inductor current as the feedback variable, yielding an output current total harmonic distortion (THD) some 29% lower than that achieved using output current feedback. A feed-forward grid voltage disturbance rejection scheme is proposed as a means to further reduce the level of low-order current harmonic distortion. Results obtained from an inverter with inductor current feedback and optimized feed-forward disturbance rejection show a THD of just 3% at full-load, representing an improvement of some 53% on the same inverter with output current feedback and no feed-forward compensation. Significant improvements in THD were also achieved across the entire load range. It is concluded that the use of inductor current feedback and feed-forward voltage disturbance rejection represent cost–effect mechanisms for achieving improved output current quality

PFC Topologies for AC to DC Converters in DC Micro-Grid

With increasing dominance of renewable energy resources and DC household appliances, the novelty of DC micro grid is attracting significant attention. The key interface between the main supply grid and DC micro grid is AC to DC converter. The conventional AC to DC converter with large output capacitor introduces undesirable power quality problems in the main supply current. It reduces system efficiency due to low power factor and high harmonic distortion. Power Factor Correction (PFC) circuits are used to make supply currents sinusoidal and in-phase with supply voltages. This paper presents different PFC topologies for single phase AC to DC converters which are analyzed for power factor (PF), total harmonic distortion (THD) and system efficiency by varying output power. Two-quadrant shunt active filter topology attains a power factor of 0.999, 3.03% THD and 98% system efficiency. Output voltage regulation of the presented active PFC topologies is simulated by applying a step load. Two-quadrant shunt active filter achieves better output voltage regulation compared to other topologies and can be used as grid interface

Power quality improvement using passive shunt filter, TCR and TSC combination

Power system harmonics are a menace to electric power systems with disastrous consequences. The line current harmonics cause increase in losses, instability, and also voltage distortion. With the proliferation of the power electronics converters and increased use of magnetic, power lines have become highly polluted. Both passive and active filters have been used near harmonic producing loads or at the point of common coupling to block current harmonics. Shunt filters still dominate the harmonic compensation at medium/high voltage level, whereas active filters have been proclaimed for low/medium voltage ratings. With diverse applications involving reactive power together with harmonic compensation, passive filters are found suitable [41]. Passive filtering has been preferred for harmonic compensation in distribution systems due to low cost, simplicity, reliability, and control less operation [42]. The uncontrolled ac-dc converter suffers from operating problems of poor power factor, injection of harmonics into the ac mains, variations in dc link voltage of input ac supply, equipment overheating due to harmonic current absorption, voltage distortion due to the voltage drop caused by harmonic currents flowing through system impedances, interference on telephone and communication line etc. The circuit topologies such as passive filters, ac-dc converter, based improved power quality ac-dc converters are designed, modeled and implemented. The main emphasis of this investigation has been on a compactness of configurations, simplicity in control, reduction in rating of components, thus finally leading to saving in overall cost. Based on thesis considerations, a wide range of configurations of power quality mitigators are developed, which is expected to provide detailed exposure to design engineers to choose a particular configuration for a specific application under the given constraints of economy and desired performance. For bidirectional power flow applications, the current source converter is designed and simulated with R-L load. The necessary modeling and simulations are carried out in MATLAB environment using SIMULINK and power system block set toolboxes. The behavior of different configurations of passive tuned filters on power quality is studied. One of the way out to resolve the issue of reactive power would be using filters and TCR, TSC with combination in the power system. Installing a filter for nonlinear loads connected in power system would help in reducing the harmonic effect. The filters are widely used for reduction of harmonics. With the increase of nonlinear loads in the power system, more and more filters are required. The combinations of passive filters with TCR and TSC are also designed and analyzed to improve the power quality at ac mains. This scheme has resulted in improved power quality with overall reduced rating of passive components used in front end ac-dc converters with R-L load

Design and Implementation of Hybrid Active Power Filter (HAPF) for UPS System

Hybrid Active Power Filter (HAPF) is designed and applied for Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) System to mitigate harmonic currents in UPS during the power conversion from rectifiers to inverters (AC-DC-AC Converters). Various UPS types and topologies are used for continuous power supply without delay and protection to connected loads. In spite of the fact that UPS is one of the power quality apparatus but it has also drawback of disturbing the power system quality of system by current harmonics and voltage distortion during conversion of power. Passive and EMI Filters could not eliminate harmonics effectively from UPS system therefore it requires modern, rapid filtering method as well combination of Active and Passive Filters. Proposed model of HAPF for UPS System could mitigate current harmonics for optimal power transfer and minimize losses, increase overall efficiency, reliability and life span of equipment. Higher harmonic current and higher voltage distortion leads to greater power loss. In this paper the (d-q) theorem is applied for the identification of harmonic currents. The d-q theorem and calculation creates the signal of reference compensation current and this produced signal of current is tracked by the yield current of the voltage source converter.. Hysteresis based controller for HAPF is applied to create the switching signals to regulate and maintain the voltage source converter output currents. Harmonics and efficiencies are analyzed at different loads and on charging and discharging of batteries of various UPS System in different industries and sectors on the basis of experimental investigation then HAPF is designed and implemented. In simulation results, it is observed that THD reduced from 46 to 10%, the harmonic currents were compensated and eliminated effectively which improved power quality of UPS System. Furthermore, addition of proposed HAPF could save the power up to 15 % which lost due to poor power quality of UPS System

Maximum length sequence and Bessel diffusers using active technologies

Active technologies can enable room acoustic diffusers to operate over a wider bandwidth than passive devices, by extending the bass response. Active impedance control can be used to generate surface impedance distributions which cause wavefront dispersion, as opposed to the more normal absorptive or pressure-cancelling target functions. This paper details the development of two new types of active diffusers which are difficult, if not impossible, to make as passive wide-band structures. The first type is a maximum length sequence diffuser where the well depths are designed to be frequency dependent to avoid the critical frequencies present in the passive device, and so achieve performance over a finite-bandwidth. The second is a Bessel diffuser, which exploits concepts developed for transducer arrays to form a hybrid absorber–diffuser. Details of the designs are given, and measurements of scattering and impedance used to show that the active diffusers are operating correctly over a bandwidth of about 100 Hz to 1.1 kHz. Boundary element method simulation is used to show how more application-realistic arrays of these devices would behave

A superconducting large-angle magnetic suspension

The component technologies were developed required for an advanced control moment gyro (CMG) type of slewing actuator for large payloads. The key component of the CMG is a large-angle magnetic suspension (LAMS). The LAMS combines the functions of the gimbal structure, torque motors, and rotor bearings of a CMG. The LAMS uses a single superconducting source coil and an array of cryoresistive control coils to produce a specific output torque more than an order of magnitude greater than conventional devices. The designed and tested LAMS system is based around an available superconducting solenoid, an array of twelve room-temperature normal control coils, and a multi-input, multi-output control system. The control laws were demonstrated for stabilizing and controlling the LAMS system

Magnetic Actuators and Suspension for Space Vibration Control

The research on microgravity vibration isolation performed at the University of Virginia is summarized. This research on microgravity vibration isolation was focused in three areas: (1) the development of new actuators for use in microgravity isolation; (2) the design of controllers for multiple-degree-of-freedom active isolation; and (3) the construction of a single-degree-of-freedom test rig with umbilicals. Described are the design and testing of a large stroke linear actuator; the conceptual design and analysis of a redundant coarse-fine six-degree-of-freedom actuator; an investigation of the control issues of active microgravity isolation; a methodology for the design of multiple-degree-of-freedom isolation control systems using modern control theory; and the design and testing of a single-degree-of-freedom test rig with umbilicals

Power Sharing and Control by Droop Controller with Advanced Filter Design: A Case Study in Lock-down Periods

In the lock-down period, the islanding mode of operation with droop controllers has several advantages in the alternating current grid. This study focuses on an improvised droop controller. It consists of an advanced filtering segment embedded with a conventional droop controller, which overcomes the drawback of droop controllers of the non-handling of non-linear loads in an ordinary situation. A selective harmonic elimination technique in grid-connected mode and lock-down mode and an advanced filter embedded with droop control are used so that the proposed controller can also work as an Active Harmonic Filter (AHF). The simulation results in different cases show that the proposed controller can control the active and reactive power in the lock-down period as well as the harmonics in the normal period up to an extent

Performance Analysis of Photovoltaic Fed Distributed Static Compensator for Power Quality Improvement

Owing to rising demand for electricity, shortage of fossil fuels, reliability issues, high transmission and distribution losses, presently many countries are looking forward to integrate the renewable energy sources into existing electricity grid. This kind of distributed generation provides power at a location close to the residential or commercial consumers with low transmission and distribution costs. Among other micro sources, solar photovoltaic (PV) systems are penetrating rapidly due to its ability to provide necessary dc voltage and decreasing capital cost. On the other hand, the distribution systems are confronting serious power quality issues because of various nonlinear loads and impromptu expansion. The power quality issues incorporate harmonic currents, high reactive power burden, and load unbalance and so on. The custom power device widely used to improve these power quality issues is the distributed static compensator (DSTATCOM). For continuous and effective compensation of power quality issues in a grid connected solar photovoltaic distribution system, the solar inverters are designed to operate as a DSTATCOM thus by increasing the efficiency and reducing the cost of the system. The solar inverters are interfaced with grid through an L-type or LCL-type ac passive filters. Due to the voltage drop across these passive filters a high amount of voltage is maintained across the dc-link of the solar inverter so that the power can flow from PV source to grid and an effective compensation can be achieved. So in the thesis a new topology has been proposed for PV-DSTATCOM to reduce the dc-link voltage which inherently reduces the cost and rating of the solar inverter. The new LCLC-type PV-DSTATCOM is implemented both in simulation and hardware for extensive study. From the obtained results, the LCLC-type PV-DSTATCOM found to be more effective than L-type and LCL-type PV-DSTATCOM. Selection of proper reference compensation current extraction scheme plays the most crucial role in DSTATCOM performance. This thesis describes three time-domain schemes viz. Instantaneous active and reactive power (p-q), modified p-q, and IcosΦ schemes. The objective is to bring down the source current THD below 5%, to satisfy the IEEE-519 Standard recommendations on harmonic limits. Comparative evaluation shows that, IcosΦ scheme is the best PV-DSTATCOM control scheme irrespective of supply and load conditions. In the view of the fact that the filtering parameters of the PV-DSTATCOM and gains of the PI controller are designed using a linearized mathematical model of the system. Such a design may not yield satisfactory results under changing operating conditions due to the complex, nonlinear and time-varying nature of power system networks. To overcome this, evolutionary algorithms have been adopted and an algorithm-specific control parameter independent optimization tool (JAYA) is proposed. The JAYA optimization algorithm overcomes the drawbacks of both grenade explosion method (GEM) and teaching learning based optimization (TLBO), and accelerate the convergence of optimization problem. Extensive simulation studies and real-time investigations are performed for comparative assessment of proposed implementation of GEM, TLBO and JAYA optimization on PV-DSTATCOM. This validates that, the PV-DSTATCOM employing JAYA offers superior harmonic compensation compared to other alternatives, by lowering down the source current THD to drastically small values. Another indispensable aspect of PV-DSTATCOM is that due to parameter variation and nonlinearity present in the system, the reference current generated by the reference compensation current extraction scheme get altered for a changing operating conditions. So a sliding mode controller (SMC) based p-q theory is proposed in the dissertation to reduce these effects. To validate the efficacy of the implemented sliding mode controller for the power quality improvement, the performance of the proposed system with both linear and non-linear controller are observed and compared by taking total harmonic distortion as performance index. From the obtained simulation and experimentation results it is concluded that the SMC based LCLC-type PV-DSTATCOM performs better in all critical operating conditions