Advances in power electronics drive systems for variable speed operation has enabled extensive use of such solutions in the propulsion and thruster systems of marine vessels. These solutions however introduce current and voltage distortions that compromises the overall power quality of the onboard electrical system. This paper presents and discusses one approach for generating the harmonic current reference for an active filter based on optimization. Two relevant results are revealed by this study: 1) lower THD values are attained by performing system optimization compared to local compensation of one load, and 2) the lower THD values are achieved with a smaller active filter rating than the one required for local load compensation.(c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works
