1994

IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 10, No. 4, October 1995

HYBRID-ACTIVE FILTERING OF HARMONIC CURRENTS IN POWER SYSTEMS

Mukul Rastogi Student Member Ned Mohan Senior Member Abdel-Aty U s Senior Member
Electric Power Research Institute 3412 Hillview Avenue Palo Alto,CA 94304

Department of Eleceical Engineering University of M i n n e s o t a Minneapolis, MN 55455

Abstract: Use of nonlinear loads and devices in power systems is expected to grow rapidly. Examples are thyristorcontrolled inductors for FACTS, converters for HVDC transmission and large adjustable speed drives. All of these loads inject harmonic currents into the power system. A novel hybrid filter topology and its control, to prevent such harmonic currents from entering the power system, are presented in this paper. Analysis shows that in the proposed filter, the power electronic converter, required to generate harmonic currents for compensation, has a rating of only 9 % when compared to the converter rating in an active filter and approximately one-half of that in a series-hybrid filter discussed in the literature. The proposed topology enables practical implementation of active harmonic current filters. The control of this filter under transient conditions such as start-up and during steady state is demonstrated by means of simulations. Results from a scaled-down hardware prototype are presented to verify the simulations.

I. INTRODUCTION In power systems, thyristor controlled inductors used for static var compensation, converters used for high voltage dc (HVDC) transmission, large adjustable-speed motor drives and a variety of nonlinear loads used in industrial plants are major sources of current harmonics. In anticipation of the proliferation of nonlinear loads and to limit the problems caused by harmonic currents, recommended guidelines like the IEEE-519 [l] specify the allowable harmonic distortion in the currents drawn from the utility system. Various types of filters for the purpose of limiting utility current distortion are discussed below. Shunt-connected passive filters [2], tuned to have low impedances at various dominant harmonic frequencies, are undesirable due to the following serious shortcomings: Filter performance is very sensitive to changes in component values and to the utility system impedance which is usually not known. The impedance of the passive filters can result in a series- or a parallel resonance condition with the utility system impedance at harmonic frequencies, thus worsening the problem of current distortion in the power system and of exceeding the filter current rating.
95 WM 258-4 PWRD A paper recommended and approved by t h e IEEE Transmission and D i s t r i b u t i o n Committee of the IEEE Power Engineering Society f o r p r e s e n t a t i o n a t t h e 1995 IEEE/PES Winter Meeting, January 29, t o February 2, 1995, New York, NP. Manuscript submitted August 1 , 1994; made a v a i l a b l e for p r i n t i n g January 4, 1995.

Active filters avoid the shortcomings of passive filters by utilizing a switch-mode power electronic converter to supply harmonic currents equal to those in the load current [3-6]. Since the load current harmonics are measured and then supplied by the current-regulated converter of the active filter, the filter performance does not depend on the utility system impedance. However, the VA rating of the power electronic converter in these active filters becomes very large because they must withstand the line-frequency utility voltage and supply the harmonic currents. Associated with this large VA converter rating are high cost, high electro-magnetic interference @MI) and high power losses. Due to these reasons, the use of active filters in power systems has been limited U, only a few experimental units [5,6]. Hybrid filters combine both passive and active filters to retain their advantages, without any of their disadvantages [7101. The VA rating of the active converter is reduced as much as possible in order to reduce the overall cost, EMI, and losses. In this paper, a novel hybrid filter topology and its control are presented. The proposed topology enables practical implementation of active harmonic current filters. The control of this filter under transient conditions (including start-up) and steady state conditions is demonstrated by means of simulations. Results from a scaled-down hardware prototype are presented to verify the simulations. Svmbols used, Lower and upper case symbols are used to represent instantaneous and nns quantities, respectively. Peak values and phasor (as well as complex) quantities are represented by upper case symbols with ',s and respectively. Subscripts 1, h and dis denote the fundamental, the harmonic h and the total distortion component, respectively. Subscripts s, f and L indicate quantities related to the source, filter and load, respectively.
I-',

11. PROPOSED HYBRID FILTER A line diagram of the proposed hybrid filter topology is shown in Fig. 1. It consists of a passive filter network, a power electronic converter operating in a current-controlled mode, a static switch consisting of two back-to-back connected thyristors and an MOV for protection. Figure 2 shows the simplified circuit diagram where the currentcontrolled converter is represented as a current source and other details are omitted. To describe the operating principle of the filter, the circuit in Fig. 2 is redrawn at the fundamental (line) frequency f l and at a harmonic frequency fh (= h fi) in Figs. 3a and 3b, respectively. As shown in Fig. 3a, at f l , the system impedance is inductive and the filter impedance is capacitive. In order to reduce the VA rating of the converter in Fig. 1, the converter current is controlled such that the fundamental

0885-8977/95/$04.000 1995 IEEE

1995

Transformer)

Fig. 1. Line diagram of the proposed hybrid-active filter.

System hpedance
L

iL

Fig. 2. Simplified circuit diagram of the hybrid filter. frequency voltage vbU.1 is dropped across the passive filter impedance (in Fig. 3a), and thus the converter voltage Vfl = 0. Using this condition, the converter current in Fig. 3a can be calculated as

Fig. 3. Operation of the hybrid filter at (a) the fundamental frequency f l and (b) a harmonic frequency fh. It should be noted that the distortion in the utility voltage will add to the converter voltage vf. For comparison purposes, the VA rating of the converter is considered as the product of its peak voltage and peak current. This method of determining the converter VA rating is justified by the semiconductor device ratings (such as that of IGBTs and GTOs) which are specified in terms of peak values. When the load current has unity displacement power factor, the fundamental frequency component if1 and the distortion component if& attain their peak values at the same instant. Hence, the rating of the converter can be expressed as

In practice, a small but finite fundamental frequency voltage will appear across the converter transformer due to the fundamental current flowing through the leakage inductance of the transformer. At a harmonic frequency fh, the filter must provide the load harmonic current T u such that it is does not flow through the utility system. Therefore,

The rating of the converter in this hybrid active filter is compared with the rating of a converter in an active filter and in a series-active hybrid filter. The load current i s assumed to have an ideal 12-pulse waveform with unity displacement power factor as shown in Fig. 4.

Equation (3) shows the importance of using a passive filter network which offers a low impedance at the dominant harmonic frequencies. Using the above equations,

ComDan'son with active filter, In an active filter, the voltage rating equals the peak of the line-frequency utility voltage, and the current rating equals the peak of the distortion component in the load current. The rating of the active filter can be expressed as

and
Vf

=c
h

vfh

The ratio of the converter ratings in the proposed hybrid filter and the active filter is given as

1996

(a)
1
A

0.5

v, Fig. 6. Operation of the series-active filter at (a) the fundamental frequency f l and (b) a harmonic frequency fh.
Time (ms) --->

r u : q rF+
Z.1
+

Vn -

(b)

z1

vil-

iL1

i,

Fig. 4. Ideal 12-pulse waveform (shown dotted), and its fundamental and distortion components. For comparison purposes, the load current waveform in Fig. 4 and identical passive filter networks in both schemes are assumed. If the fundamental frequency current drawn by the h i s value is passive filters is 0.2 p.u. then the ratio fi is 0.45. T 0.61 if the passive fdter fundamental current is 0.4 p.u. ID. CONTROL OF THE HYBRID FILTER
I

Laad

Fig. 5. Simplified representation of a series-active hybrid filter.

A . Start-up procedure To make this arrangement practical, its proper control under steady state and transient conditions is important. To prevent excessive voltage across the converter during start-up and transient conditions, a static switch ST is used in combination with an MOV. During start-up, S 1 is closed and gate pulses to ST are provided. A fundamental frequency current and most of the load distortion current now flow through ST. Then, S2 is closed and the current through the converter is controlled such that the net current through ST is essentially zero. Subsequently, the gate pulses are removed t the current zero crossings from ST. The thyristors turn off a immediately following the removal of the gate pulses. Now the converter is ready to perform its operation in steady state. Since the converter generates a current while ST is conducting, the full-bridge inverter in Fig. 1 requires a dc voltage source. This source is obtained by rectifying a line frequency voltage. The rating of the rectifier is very small because it supplies the power losses in the converter. During sudden changes in the utility voltage, the MOV will limit the voltage across the active filter to a fixed level until the converter generates the required fundamental frequency current. If, however, the energy dissipation limit of the MOV is exceeded, the back-to-back connected thyristors of ST can be gated-on to protect the MOV.
B . Converter control

The voltage ratio in (8) can be reduced to a small value by suitably designing the passive filter network in the hybrid filter. It is shown in Section IV that the VA rating of the converter in the proposed hybrid filter is only 8.6 % of that in an active filter. ComDan'son with series-active hybrid filter, Figure 5 shows a simplified circuit diagram of a series-active hybrid filter 181. It consists of a series-active filter placed between the source and the load, and a tuned passive filter network connected across the load. Figures 6a and 6b show the operation of the hybrid filter at the fundamental frequency f l and at a harmonic frequency fh = h f l , respectively. At the fundamental frequency, the active filter allows a current is= T L ~ +if1to flow through it, where T f l is the fundamental current drawn by the passive filter network. At a harmonic frequency fh, the active filter acts like an isolator forcing all the load harmonic current to flow through the passive filter network. The voltage across the filter at the frequency fh is

The voltage across the converter is given by ( 5 ) and the rating is given as VAser,hyb = qf is
(10)

Thus, the ratio of the converter VA ratings in the proposed hybrid filter and the series-active hybrid filter is

The converter is controlled to compensate for load current harmonics, and to draw a current in order to drop the fundamental frequency utility voltage across the passive filter network. The converter is operated as a current source with the control circuit, as shown in Fig. 7,providing the current reference. The control circuit requires measured values of the load current iL, the terminal voltage vbus and the converter voltage vaf. The reference current for the converter iaf,refhas three components, namely - id,&, iaf.1 and Aiaf,l.

1997

I
Current controller
Switch signals

Fig. 7. Block diagram of the control circuit for the converter. The component iaf.dk is obtained by using a notch filter which removes the 60 Hz component from iL. Commercially available notch filters provide high attenuation in the region around the notch frequency even with variations in temperature and fundamental frequency. A sixth order notch filter with a Q of 10 [ l l ] is used in the hardware model described in Section V. The filter provides an attenuation of atleast 50 dB over a frequency range of W . 5 Hz and has a center frequency variation of 0.05 % over a temperaturerange of 0-70C. The component iaf,l is generated by dividing the fundamental frequency (60 Hz) component of Vbus by an estimate of the 60 Hz impedance of the passive filter network, lZfll (see (1)). Since the passive filter network phase impedance at 60 Hz is essentially capacitive, a -90 shifter is used to obtain the correct phase of the fundamental current id,1 to be generated by the active filter. The last component, Aiaf,l, is introduced to correct for the error in estimating the filter impedance at the fundamental frequency. The error in estimating l&ll causes a fundamental frequency voltage component to appear across the converter. In order to minimize this component, the voltage vaf is sensed, the fundamental frequency component Vaf, 1 is decomposed into two dc quantities, and each component is compared with zero in a controller. The decomposition of Vaf.1 is accomplished by multiplying vaf with sin(wt) and cos(ot) and deriving the average of each of the outputs with low pass filters. The outputs of the low pass filters are on to an orthogonal set proportional to the projection of V a f , ~ of axes as shown below. The voltage v d can be expressed as a sum of its harmonic components as
vaf = V a f , ~ sin (ot + @) +

product yields 0.5V&~sh($). Each low pass filter output is compared with its reference (= zero) in a lag-lead controller. The outputs of the controllers are multiplied with phase shifted components to obtain the correct phase for the reference current component Aiaf,l. A current mode controller generates the switch signals for the converter such that the actual converter current iaf remains within a certain band around the reference current iafJef [U.

IV. COMPUTER SIMULATIONS

A. System Description The simulated system consists of a three-phase, 230 kV (rms, line-to-line), 60 Hz source supplying a 250 MW, 12pulse HVDC converter station with a rated dc output voltage of 250 kV. The Y-Y and the A-Y transformers for the 12pulse converter have a per-unit impedance of 5 %. In order to determine if compensation using the hybrid filter can lead to resonance problems, the ac system is modeled to have an equivalent impedance as shown in Fig. 8. Parallel resonance occurs at the 6th and 12th harmonic frequencies and series resonance occurs at the 9th and 15th harmonics. The equivalent 60 Hz impedance corresponds to a short-circuit-ratioof 23. Such an impedance characteristic is obtained using the R-L-C network shown in Fig. 9 and the values of the components are given in the Appendix. A procedure to derive the values of the components when the resonant frequencies are known is provided in [ 131. The component values for the passive filter network (see Fig. 1) for this simulation are given in the Appendix. This filter arrangement provides 39 % reactive var compensation at the fundamental frequency and requires 244 A of fundamental frequency current to drop the source voltage across it. To get an estimate of the required dc bus voltage of the converter for the proposed hybrid filter, the load current is assumed to have an ideal 12-pulse waveform. The fundamental component of the load current is 627 A (rms), and the harmonic components of order h (= 11, 13, 23, 25, ...) are given as 627h A. Using these values, the peak harmonic voltage across the passive filter network is calculated using (3) and (5) to be 7 kV. Thus, the dc bus of the active filter has to be maintained at a voltage higher than 7 kV. For simulation purposes, the active filter is isolated from the power system by means of a 1:l isolation transformer. The dc side of the active filter is supplied from a 10 kV voltage source. The thyristors are modeled as ideal switches

C Vd,h sin (hot + @h)(12)

h=3

Multiplying both sides of (12) by sin(ot) gives

Vaf, 1 v,fsin (o t) = 006 @ - - vaf-l
L
00

006

(2ot + @) (13)

+ h=3 z V a f , h sin(hm+q+,)sin(wl)

The output of the low pass filter is equal to the dc component of vafsin(ot) which is OSVaf,~cos(t$). Similarly, multiplication of vaf with cos(wt) and low pass filtering the

Fig. 8. Magnitude of system impedance. and the MOV is modeled as a ZnO Arrester with a rating of 7.65 kV (rms) such that at 15.0 kV a current of 10oO A will flow through it. Assuming a maximum switching frequency of 20 kHz and a tolerance band for current control of 50 A, the value of the inductor for the active filter is obtained from,

Fig. 9. R-L-C network used to obtain the system impedance curve. These devices can be connected in parallel to achieve the desired current levels. Figure 11 shows current and voltage waveforms during steady state operation of the hybrid filter. The effect of a 10 % increase in the source voltage is shown in Fig. 12. During this change, which begins at t = 0.3 s, the HVDC converter is controlled such that the increase in source voltage has negligible effect on the magnitude of the load current. The ZnO Arrester limits the voltage across the converter to 13.3 kV while the control circuit takes some time in generating the correct reference current to reduce the fundamental voltage across the converter. In practice, this peak value of vf will determine the voltage rating of the switches for the hybrid filter. The waveform of the arrester current iMOV shows that it operates for only one cycle after which the converter voltage is reduced below the arrester voltage rating. In order to test the effectiveness of the lag-lead controllers, a 10 % error is assumed in the estimate of the 60 Hz impedance Efll of the passive filters. The steady state error due to the use of lag-lead controllers is only 150 V. Hence, the error due to the controller forms only 1.1 % of the maximum voltage (13.3 kV) across the converter. The simulation results verify the start-up procedure and show the effectiveness of the static switch in reducing the voltage across the converter during start-up. The hybrid filter is thus able to compensate for harmonic currents in the load while having a low converter VA rating for its converter under steady state and transient conditions. Moreover, the nature of the system impedance does not affect compensation of harmonic currents with the hybrid filter.

Li =

Vdc 2fsw.max d p p '

(14)

as 5.0 mH [121. Vdc is the dc bus voltage, fsw,max is the maximum switching frequency and AIpp is the maximum peak-to-peak ripple in the converter current, A filter capacitor, Ci = 0.35 pF, is used across the converter terminals to prevent the switching frequency current from entering the power system.
B. Comparison o f the hybridjilter and the active filter with ideal load current waveform (Fig. 4 )
For the hybrid filter the converter voltage rating i s 7 kV and the current rating is 607 A. For the conventional active filter, the voltage rating is 187.8 kV and the current rating is 262 A. The ratio of the converter ratings in the two filter configurations is obtained from (8) as

The converter rating in the hybrid active filter is thus only 8.6 % of that in the conventional active filter. The rating of the converter in the hybrid f i l t e r is calculated to be 5 % of the load rating.

V. HARDWARE IMPLEMENTATION
A single-phase hybrid filter is used to compensate one phase of a 6-pulse diode bridge rectifier load operating from a 208 V, 60 Hz source. The passive filter network is simplified to a single 60 pF capacitor ( C l ) . The converter operates at a constant switching frequency of 21 kHz. The semiconductor devices (IGBTs) are turned on and off repeatedly in order to maintain the actual current within a certain band around the reference current. In addition to providing the current band, two clocks are required to operate the devices ar a fixed frequency as described in [151. The converter inductance Li is chosen as 4.0 mH,which requires a peak-to-peak current ripple of at least 0.36 A with a dc bus voltage of 60 V (14). Since the switching frequency is

C. Simulation Results
Figure 10 shows the source voltage, the current iST through the thyristors and the converter voltage during startup of the hybrid filter. The switch S1 is closed and the thyristors of the static switch ST are gated-on at time t = 131.9 ms. The active filter begins to operate when switch S2 is closed at time t = 148.6 ms. The voltage across the active filter remains zero until t = 156.9 ms, after which the gate signals to the thyristors of ST are removed. The voltage across the converter is now a small fraction of the phase voltage and is equal to the drop in the filter branches due to the harmonic currents flowing in them. Discrete devices such as IGBTs which can handle 400 A are currently available.

1999

800 (A) -.
0-800-

-4001

'ST
I

(kV)
0

(A) -0-

'MOV
L L . I

0.31

8.33

8.35

8.37

-20

Seconds

Fig. 10. Waveformsduring start-up.

800

-8l

Seconds

'

Fig. 1 1. Waveforms during steady state. constant, the filter capacitor Ci is replaced with a tuned L-C (1 1.49 pH - 5.0 ClF) filter. In the hardwm circuit, the switch S2 and the transformer at the output of the converter (see Fig. 1) are not used. The switch SI consists of back-to-back connected thyristors. The thyristors of Si and ST are turned on at the zero crossings of the load terminal voltage vbus. This minimizes the inrush current through the thyristors. The closing of the switch S1 and the operation of the converter are synchronized to the turning-on of the thyristors of ST. Figure 13 shows the converter voltage vf and the capacitor (Cl) current ' iduring start-up. Before the time instant to, the hybrid filter is disconnected from the power system. At time U, the capacitor C1 and the converter are connected to the power system, and the thyristors ST are gated-on. The converter voltage vaf remains zero. while the converter begins generating current which reduces the current through ST to substantially zero. At time ti, the thyristors ST are gated-off and the voltage across the converter is equal to the harmonic drop across C1. Figure 14 shows the steady state voltage and current waveforms. Even though the passive filter network comprises of a simple capacitor, the peak voltage across the converter is 34 V at start-up and 23 V during steady state operation while the peak utility phase voltage is 170 V. The maximum converter voltage across the converter is thus only a fraction of the peak utility voltage.
VI. COMPARISONS

Fig. 13. Experimental waveforms during start-up.

5 mddiv. 250 V/div. 10 Ndiv. 50 V/div.

Fig. 14. Experimental waveforms during steady state. Filtering Methods. Resonance conditions with passive filters lead to poor performance and overloading of components reduces reliability. Converter VA rating directly determines the cost and switching losses in the converter. Moreover, in the present as well as in the foreseeable future, the cost of passive components will be less than that of the active components. Hence, the hybrid active filter lies in between the passive filters and the pure active filter in terms of cost and losses. Resonant switching schemes can be utilized to reduce switching losses in the converter [16,17], thus improving the efficiency of pure active and hybrid-active filters.

Table 1 shows a qua!itative comparison of three types of

2000

Table 1. Comparison of Passive, Pure Active and HybridActive Filters.

I I

LOW

High

VII. CONCLUSIONS Reduction in the rating of converters in active filters is possible only when passive filters are used in a hybrid filter configuration. Various techniques exist for implementing hybrid filters with low ratings for the active filters under steady state conditions. This paper presents a novel hybrid filter topology and its control which enable practical implementationof hybrid filters with reduced converter raring for high power loads. A comparison with active filters and the series-hybrid filter configuration shows that the proposed approach has the lowest converter rating. The effectiveness of the control method is verifled using simulations and is further validated with results from a laboratory prototype. A promising extension of the present work to provide active damping of resonances caused by other nonlinear loads on the power system is being investigated. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The support provided by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) for this project is gratefully acknowledged. REFERENCES
C.K. Duffey and R.P. Stratford, "Update of Harmonic Standard IEEE-519: Recommended Practices and Requirements for Harmonic Control in Electric Power Supply System," IEEEAAS Petroleum and Chemical Industxy Conference, 1988. E.W. Kimbark, D.C. Transmission. New York Wiley Interscience, 1971. L. Gyugi and E.C. Strycula, "Active AC Power Filters," IEEE/IAS Annual Meeting, 1976, pp. 529-535. K. Komatsugi and T. Imura, "Harmonic Current Compensator composed of Static Power Converter," IEEE PESC, 1986, pp. 283-290. H. Akagi. A. Nabae and S.Atoh, "Control Strategy of Active Power Filters using Multiple Voltage-Source PWM Converters," IEEE Trans. IAS,Vol. IA-22, No. 3, pp. 460465. H. Kawahira, T. Nakamura, S. Nakazawa and M. Nomura, "Active Power Filter," IPEC-Tokyo, 1983, pp. 981-992. N. Mohan, H.A. Peterson, W.F. Long, G.R. Dreifuerst and J.J. Vithayathil, "Active Filters for AC Harmonic Suppression," IEEEPES 1977 Winter Power Meeting, A 77 026-8. F.Z. Peng, H. Akagi. and A. Nabae. "A Novel Harmonic Power Filter," PESC, 1988, pp. 1151-1159. C. Wong. N. Mohan, S.E. Wright and K.N. Mortensen, "Feasibility study of AC- and DC-side Active Filters for HVDC Converter Terminals." IEEE Trans. on Pow. Del. Vol. 4, NO.4, Oct. 1989. pp. 2067-2075. W. Zhang. C A . Asplund. A. Aberg and 0. LOof, "Active DC Filter for HVDC System: A Test Installation in the Konti-Skan DC Link at Lindome Converter Station," IEEEPES 1992 S~mmer Meeting, 92 SM 469-7 PWRD. Active Filter Products, Design and Selection Guide, Frequency Devices, 1986, pp. 125-143.

[12] N. Mohan, T.M. Undeland and W.P. Robbins. P o w e r Electronics: Converters, Applications and Design, John Wiley & Sons. 1989. [13] A. Medina, J. Arrillaga and N.R. Watson, "Derivation of Multi-Harmonic Equivalent Models of Power Networks," Intemational Conference on Harmonics in Power Systems IV. 1990, pp. 290-296. [ 141 IGBT Datu Book, FUJI Electric, Oct. 1992. pp. 252-254.. [15] V. Anunciada and M.M. Silva, "New Constant Frequency Current-Mode Control for Power Converters, stable for all values of duty ratio and usable in all four quadrants," IEEE Trans. on Ind. Elec., Vol. 37, No.4, Aug. 1990. [16] J.W. Choi and S.K. Sul, "Resonant Link Bidirectional Power Converter without Electrolytic Capacitor." PESC. 1993. pp. 293-299. [17] J . G .Cho. H.S. Kim and G.H. Cho. "Novel Soft Switching PWM Converter using a New Parallel Resonant DC-Link," PESC, 1991, pp. 241-247.

APPENDIX The component values for the simulated system are given as follows: In Fig. 1, hl and h2 equal 11 and 13, respectively, and L11= 51.7 mH, C11= 1.125 p F , R11= 1.66 R, L13 = 55.1 mH, C13 = 0.75 FF. R13 = 2.1 R, c h p = 3.0 pF, RhP = 0.01 a. In Fig. 8, Ra = 0.01 R, La = 24.53 mH, Rb = 5 . 0 a, Lb = 27.43 mH, Cb = 3.24 W, R, = 5.0 R, Lc = 16.32 mH, Cc = 1.94 pF. BIOGRAPHIES
Mukul Rastoei (S,'92) received the B. Tech. and M.S. degrees, both in Electrical Engineering, from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India in 1991, and from the University of Minnesota in 1993, respectively. He is currently working towards the Ph.D. degree in power electronics at the University of Minnesota Ned Mohm(SM) was born in India on October 5. 1946. He received the B. Tech. (EE) degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India in 1967 and the M.S. (EE) from the University of New Brunswick, Canada in 1969. He received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering in 1973 from the University of Wisconsin Madison under the supervision of Professor Harold A. Peterson. At presenc he is a Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Minnesota and holds the Oscar A. Schott chair in Power Electronics. Dr. Mohan is the co-author of a recent textbook in power electronics. He has numerous publications and several patents in the field of Power Electronics. Abdel-Atv Edris (SM, '88) was born in Cairo, Egypt in 1945. He received his B.Sc. from Cairo University in 1967. the M.S. from AinShams University, Egypt in 1973, the Ph.D. from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden in 1979. Dr. Edris joined ASEA (now ABB) in Vasteras, Sweden in 1981. From 1982 to 1986 he was involved in power systems analysis of HVDC and reactive power compensation projects. From 1986 to 1990 he worked with development projects introducing new concepts improving power systems performance. From 1990 to 1992 he was with Transmission and Relaying Center of ABB's Advanced Systems Technology in Pittsburgh. In 1992 Dr. Edris joined Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) as a Manager of Flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS). Dr. Edris is a member of several IEEE and C E R E Working Groups.