A Comprehensive Survey on Different Control Strategies and Applications of Active Power Filters for Power Quality Improvement

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Power quality (PQ) has become an important topic in today’s power system scenario. PQ issues are raised not only in normal three-phase systems but also with the incorporation of different distributed generations (DGs), including renewable energy sources, storage systems, and other systems like diesel generators, fuel cells, etc. The prevalence of these issues comes from the non-linear features and rapid changing of power electronics devices, such as switch-mode converters for adjustable speed drives and diode or thyristor rectifiers. The wide use of these fast switching devices in the utility system leads to an increase in disturbances associated with harmonics and reactive power. The occurrence of PQ disturbances in turn creates several unwanted effects on the utility system. Therefore, many researchers are working on the enhancement of PQ using different custom power devices (CPDs). In this work, the authors highlight the significance of the PQ in the utility network, its effect, and its solution, using different CPDs, such as passive, active, and hybrid filters. Further, the authors point out several compensation strategies, including reference signal generation and gating signal strategies. In addition, this paper also presents the role of the active power filter (APF) in different DG systems. Some technical and economic considerations and future developments are also discussed in this literature. For easy reference, a volume of journals of more than 140 publications on this particular subject is reported. The effectiveness of this research work will boost researchers’ ability to select proper control methodology and compensation strategy for various applications of APFs for improving PQ.publishedVersio

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

Study and RTDS implementation of some controllers for performance and power quality improvement of an induction motor drive system

The present research work is directed to study of some controllers for design, modelling, simulation and RTDS implementation of induction motor (IM) drive system to identify suitable controller for high performance.Initially dynamic modelling and simulation of a feedback linearization scheme for high performance IM drive is carried out. The flux measurement required in this scheme is achieved using flux estimator rather sensor to simplify the system. The complexity and calculation involved in reference frame transformation is taken care by implementing the scheme in stationary reference frame. Two linear and independent subsystems: (i) Electrical and (ii) Mechanical are created by linearizing control scheme. The systematic design of closed loop control scheme using Proportional Integral (PI) controller is developed for implementation. To take care of uncertainties in the system the Fuzzy controller is added to speed controller. Sliding Mode (SM) controller considered to be a robust control strategy is designed and developed for IM drive. A procedure of finding gain and bandwidth of the controller is developed to take care of model inaccuracies, load disturbances and rotor resistance variation. During practical implementation of this controller for IM leads to oscillations and of state variable chattering due to presence of limiter and PWM inverter in the system. Iterative Learning controller (ILC) introduced in recent time is gaining popularity due to capability to take care of short comings of Sliding Mode controller. Feedback and feed forward Iterative Learning controller combining fuzzy logic is designed and developed. The MATLAB/SIMULINK model of IM drive with controllers designed are simulated under various possible operating conditions. A comparative study of three controllers is carried out in similar situation and the response of the drive system is presented.Normally we neglect stability aspect of IM while investigating procedure for performance improvement of IM drive. Stability study of IM in open loop and closed vii loop conditions using Lyapunov criteria and also considering the power balance equation are presented

Mitigation of Power Quality Problems Using Custom Power Devices: A Review

Electrical power quality (EPQ) in distribution systems is a critical issue for commercial, industrial and residential applications. The new concept of advanced power electronic based Custom Power Devices (CPDs) mainly distributed static synchronous compensator (D-STATCOM), dynamic voltage restorer (DVR) and unified power quality conditioner (UPQC) have been developed due to lacking the performance of traditional compensating devices to minimize power quality disturbances. This paper presents a comprehensive review on D-STATCOM, DVR and UPQC to solve the electrical power quality problems of the distribution networks. This is intended to present a broad overview of the various possible DSTATCOM, DVR and UPQC configurations for single-phase (two wire) and three-phase (three-wire and four-wire) networks and control strategies for the compensation of various power quality disturbances. Apart from this, comprehensive explanation, comparison, and discussion on D-STATCOM, DVR, and UPQC are presented. This paper is aimed to explore a broad prospective on the status of D-STATCOMs, DVRs, and UPQCs to researchers, engineers and the community dealing with the power quality enhancement. A classified list of some latest research publications on the topic is also appended for a quick reference

New topology of shunt hybrid power filter for harmonic mitigation and re-utilization of harmonic filter current as useful power

Power electronic appliances are recently used widely in industrial, commercial, and home sectors; these appliances include diode and thyristor rectifiers, and variable speed drive systems. When these appliances are connected to the grid, they generate harmonics in the current and voltage waveform which contributes to the degradation of the system efficiency and deterioration of the overall system performance due to an increase of effective peak value and also the rms current in some devices. Conventional passive power filters (PPF) for harmonic mitigation have inherent problems, while purely active power filters (APF) have the disadvantages of higher costs and ratings. Hybrid active filters (HPF) inherit the efficiency of PPFs and the improved performance of APFs, and thus, constitute a viable improved approach for harmonic compensation. An eight different HPF topology is composed of one APF and PPF in series or shunt or combination. Nevertheless, among the existing mitigation HPFs, the shunt LC HPF is the most effective against current harmonics problems due to its feasibility for harmonic current compensation. However, it cannot perform satisfactory dynamic reactive power compensation because reactive power varies from time to time. Furthermore, to have low impedances at high frequencies, the capacitor of this filter needs to be large which will be influenced seriously by the source inductor. In this study, a new topology of shunt RLC-HPF is introduced to improve the efficiency of current harmonic reduction and perform power factor (PF) correction through reactive power compensation via the provision of a low impedance path through the inductor (for low frequencies) and low impedance through the capacitor (for high frequencies).. The effectiveness of HPF is strictly dependent on how quickly and accurately the detection of reference harmonic current, DC-link capacitor voltage regulation, and current control is achieved. The shunt HPF was designed based on synchronous reference frame strategy (SRF) and self-tuning filter (STF) to develop the operation of the filter under non-ideal (unbalanced and/or distorted) source voltage conditions. As for its controller, switching signals to drive the voltage source inverter (VSI) of the shunt APF adaptive hysteresis current controller (AHCC) are used. Also, proportional-integral (PI) and back propagation neural network (BPNN) controllers are developed to maintain a constant voltage across the DC-link capacitor so that the shunt APF can precisely inject the desired referred currents back into the harmonic power system. The shunt HPF performance is validated for all possible conditions of source and load by simulation using MATLAB/ Simulink environment. The simulation results obtained by the STF -SRF strategy with BPNN controller showed excellent achievement when compared to SRF with PI controller in the mitigation of current harmonics, PF enhancement, and DC voltage regulation. As a result, the minimum total harmonic distortion (THD) values of the source current recorded clear advantages of the STF-SRF strategy (1.8 %) over the existing SRF strategy (10 %), especially in dealing with non-ideal source voltage conditions. Furthermore, the encouraging findings have led to the correction of the PF to 0.999 using STF-SRF in contrast to 0.842 with the SRF strategy. Moreover, the DC-link capacitor voltage was properly regulated and maintained at the respective desired values under all cases with the BPNN controller, while the PI controller failed to be regulated. Ultimately, the main aim of the new HPF topology is the improvement of PF and reducing harmonic current, as well as re-utilization of the extracted harmonic filter current via conversion to useful power to feed the RL load within the limitation of the IEEE-519-2014 standards

Development of controllers using FPGA for fuel cells in standalone and utility applications

In the recent years, increase in consumption of energy, instability of crude oil price and global climate change has forced researchers to focus more on renewable energy sources.Though there are different renewable energy sources available (such as photovoltaic and wind energy), they have some major limitations. The potential techniques which can provide renewable energy are fuel cell technology which is better than other renewable sources of energy. Solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) is more efficient, environmental friendly renewable energy source. This dissertation focuses on load/grid connected fuel cell power system (FCPS) which can be used as a backup power source for household and commercial units. This backup power source will be efficient and will provide energy at an affordable per unit cost. Load/grid connected fuel cell power system mainly comprises of a fuel cell module, DCDC converter and DC-AC inverter. This thesis primarily focuses on solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) modelling, digital control of DC-DC converter and DC-AC inverter. Extensive simulation results are validated by experimental results. Dynamic mathematical model of SOFC is developed to find out output voltage, efficiency, over potential loss and power density of fuel cell stack. The output voltage of fuel cell is fed to a DC-DC converter to step up the output voltage. Conventional Proportional-Integral (PI) controller and FPGA based PI controller is implemented and experimentally validated. The output voltage of DC-DC converter is fed to DC-AC inverter. Different pulse width modulation-voltage source inverter (PWM-VSI) control strategy (such as Hysteresis Current Controller (HCC), Adaptive-HCC, Fuzzy-HCC, Adaptive Fuzzy-HCC, Triangular Carrier Current Controller (TCCC) and Triangular Periodical Current Controller (TPCC)) for DC-AC inverter are investigated and validated through extensive simulations using MATLAB/SIMULINK. This work also focuses on number of fuel cells required for application in real time and remedy strategies when one or few fuel cells are malfunctioning. When the required numbers of fuel cells are not available, DC-DC converter is used to step up the output voltage of fuel cell. When there is a malfunction in fuel cell or shortage of hydrogen then a battery is used to provide backup power

Improved harmonic suppression efficiency of single-phase APFs in distorted distribution systems

In this study, a control method is proposed to improve the harmonic suppression efficiency of the single phase active power filter in a distorted power system to suppress current harmonics and reactive power. The proposed method uses the self-tuning filter (STF) algorithm to process single phase grid voltage in order to provide a uniform reference grid current, which increases the efficiency of the system. The results of the simulation study are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control technique in this study

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