A new combined method in active filter design for power quality improvement in power systems

The voltage & current harmonics produced by nonlinear loads in power systems cause a reduction in power quality. In order to improve the power quality, active power filters (APFs) can be used. In this paper, a new control system for designing active filters despite nonlinear loads of electric arc furnaces (EAFs) is presented. The system is composed of three main parts: computation of reference currents, regulation of DC capacitor voltage, and production of firing pulses. In the first part, the active filter control system is presented based on the combination of the synchronous detection method and instantaneous power theory. In the second part, the DC capacitor voltage regulator is applied, producing a reference current and a proper voltage regulator is developed. For the third part of the control system, we use a PI controller to provide some conditions that follow the reference current in a complete cycle, and generate firing pulses by the hysteresis method. The proposed control system not only reduces the voltage and current harmonics in power systems but can also improve the power quality indices. The above design was implemented in the EAF system of the Mobarakeh steel complex (Isfahan, Iran). The simulation results show the effectiveness of the APFs in improving the power quality indices. Crown Copyright (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of ISA. All rights reserved.