Enhancement of power quality in domestic loads using harmonic filters

Abstract

This study deals with the mitigation of current harmonics, which is primarily important to alleviate power quality problems in modern times. Current harmonics produced by different widely used loads have been evaluated and related parameters have been tabled. Using the data obtained, a non-linear load was modelled to serve as the test load. Different mitigation solutions and techniques were studied to select an appropriate filter design for domestic single-phase application. The Active Power Filter (APF)'s steady-state and dynamic output was evaluated with reference current extraction techniques like PQ and SRF theories in Simulink. For a fair comparison, various parameters related to the filter design were kept identical between the tests conducted; and to test the dynamic performance, a highly inductive load was connected halfway through simulation. The reactive power compensation offered by the filter was studied by using various waveforms and parameters are investigated and tabulated. The study was carried out to identify a reference current extraction technique that yields the best performance and understand the implementation of the same to identify inherent issues that can sometimes be overlooked because of their simplicity and ease of implementation. The performance of two commonly used reference current extraction techniques were analyzed by subjecting it to highly non-linear and highly inductive loads that were modelled based on various loads that were analyzed.