New Reference Current Calculation Method of a Hybrid Power Filter Based on Customer Harmonic Emission

Abstract

This paper presents a novel reference current calculation method for harmonics mitigation and reactive power compensation in power systems. This method was applied to a unique hybrid power filter topology. The motivation for this study comes from the increasing power quality issues, such as harmonic distortion and resonances, caused by the widespread integration of converter-interfaced generation (CIG) and modern nonlinear loads into the power system in recent years. The goal of this study is to propose a cost-effective and practical solution for current harmonics filtering and power factor correction by combining the advantages of passive and active filters into a hybrid solution. The developed reference current calculation method, which is based on customer current harmonic emissions, enables effective reference current calculation. Theoretical analyses along with simulation results obtained from a medium-voltage benchmark model in PSCAD verify the effectiveness of the proposed solution in harmonics filtering and show a substantial reduction in filter current ratings across various harmonic components. In addition, the simulation results were evaluated by comparison with the results obtained from a real-time simulator.

Keywords

• reference current calculation method
• harmonic filtering
• hybrid filter topology
• nonlinear loads
• power factor correction
• power quality