An optimization approach to determining the power of active filters

Abstract

The coal grading plants in Vietnam extensively apply asynchronous motors with frequency control. They consume reactive power and non-sinusoidal current from the supply network. The nonsinusoidal currents and voltages lead to additional energy losses in electrical equipments, reduce their service life and cause an economic damage. Because of the low load power factor the companies with such plants pay penalties to power supply utilities. These problems can be solved by the active filters. The paper suggests an optimization algorithm to calculate the power of the active filter, which provides a load power factor corresponding to the normative documents and power quality indices corresponding to the standard requirements. The algorithm is used to calculate the power of the active filter for the coal grading plant owned by the company “Kua Ong-Vinakomin”.