Active filtering of electric power has now become a mature technology for harmonic and reactive power compensation in two-wire (single phase), three-wire (three phase without neutral), and four-wire (three phase with neutral) AC power networks with nonlinear loads. This paper presents a comprehensive review of active filter (AF) configurations, control strategies, selection of components, other related economic and technical considerations, and their selection for specific applications. It is aimed at providing a broad perspective on the status of AF technology to researchers and application engineers dealing with power quality issues. A list of more than 200 research publications on the subject is also appended for a quick reference.

A review of active filters for power quality improvement

There has been considerable interest in the development and applications of active filters because of the increasing concern over power quality, at both distribution and consumer levels, and the need to control reactive power and voltage stability at transmission levels. The existing approaches are classified and assessed to provide a framework of references for both researchers in this field and for generators, suppliers and consumers of electrical power who are, or may be, concerned about the problems associated with power quality and are considering installing active filters for their particular sets of problems.

Active power filters: a review

The reliability of the microinverter is a very important feature that will determine the reliability of the ac-module photovoltaic (PV) system. Recently, many topologies and techniques have been proposed to improve its reliability. This paper presents a thorough study for different power decoupling techniques in single-phase microinverters for grid-tie PV applications. These power decoupling techniques are categorized into three groups in terms of the decoupling capacitor locations: 1) PV-side decoupling; 2) dc-link decoupling; and 3) ac-side decoupling. Various techniques and topologies are presented, compared, and scrutinized in scope of the size of decoupling capacitor, efficiency, and control complexity. Also, a systematic performance comparison is presented for potential power decoupling topologies and techniques.

A Review of Power Decoupling Techniques for Microinverters With Three Different Decoupling Capacitor Locations in PV Systems

The electrolytic capacitor is the key component that limits the operating lifetime of LED drivers. If an ac-dc LED driver with power factor correction (PFC) control is allowed to output a pulsating current for driving the LEDs, the electrolytic capacitor will no longer be required. However, this pulsating current will introduce light flicker that varies at twice the power line frequency. In this paper, a configuration of flicker-free electrolytic capacitor-less single-phase ac-dc driver for LED lighting is proposed. The configuration comprises an electrolytic capacitor-less PFC converter and a bidirectional converter, which serves to absorb the ac component of the pulsating current of the PFC converter, leaving only a dc component to drive the LEDs. The output filter capacitor of the bidirectional converter is intentionally designed to have a large voltage ripple, thus its capacitance can be greatly reduced. Consequently, film capacitors can be used instead of electrolytic capacitors, leading to the realization of a flicker-free ac-dc LED driver that has a long lifetime. The proposed solution is generally applicable to all single-phase PFC converters. A prototype with 48-V, 0.7-A output is constructed and tested. Experimental results are presented to verify the effectiveness of the flick-free electrolytic capacitor-less ac-dc LED driver.

A flicker-free electrolytic capacitor-less ac-dc LED driver

There have been many variants of the active power filter proposed and these variations cover both the circuit topology and the control system employed. Some of the control variants reflect different control objectives but there are still many variants within similar objectives. The available control techniques are described and contrasted in a structured way to identify their performance strengths. Objectives are classified by the supply current components to be corrected and by the response required to distorted grid voltage. The various signal transformations are described in terms of their impact on the distortion identification problem. Time-domain, frequency-domain, instantaneous power and impedance synthesis methods are examined. Additional control functions such as DC-bus voltage and current reference following are also discussed. It is found that a key difference between control methods is the way in which current distortion is treated in the presence of distorted grid voltage.

Control techniques for active power filters

The paper presents an active power filter (APF) circuit which employs a new control method, using an integration and sampling technique, to simplify the calculation algorithm for the real fundamental component of load current. In addition, a new simple control scheme, based on the energy balance concept, is proposed to control the voltage of an energy-storage capacitor. Since the energy change in the energy-storage capacitor can be compensated in the next cycle, and a larger DC bus voltage ripple can be tolerated if a sampling technique is used, a relatively smaller energy storage capacitor is required. The advantages of this APF circuit are simplicity of control circuits, low cost (a smaller energy-storage capacitor) and good transient response. In theory, the time delay for the compensation of reactive power and harmonic currents is zero. The feasibility of this theory is veriffied by using a PSPICE simulation and experimental results.

C.Y. Hsu

Papers

A new single-phase active power filter with reduced energy-storage capacity