Series Hybrid Power Filter Based on

SVPWM-VSI to Compensate for Source

Current Harmonics and Voltage Unbalance

Yushaizad Yusof
Fakulti Kejuruteraan & Alam Bina, 43600
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Selangor
Nasrudin Abd. Rahim
UMPEDAC, Fakulti Kejuruteraan, 50603
Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur

Abstract-This paper discusses a simulation study for series
hybrid active power filter which is a combination of series
active power filter and passive power filter in order to mitigate
source current harmonics produced by nonlinear loads. Hence,
shunt connected passive filters suppress current harmonics
drawn by the loads, whereas the series active filter acts as a
harmonic isolator between the source and load. A control
method based on synchronous reference frame (SRF) is
implemented in compensation of source current harmonics.
Derived reference voltage for source current harmonics
compensation is fired via space vector pulse width modulator
(SVPWM) as gating signals for voltage source inverter (VSI).
The Matlab/Simulink software is implemented for simulation
and modelling the system. As a result, the proposed system is
significantly mitigates source current harmonics to the level
that comply the power system harmonics standard.
I. INTRODUCTION
Power system is designed to operate at frequency of 50
Hz. However, certain types of loads such as nonlinear loads
produce currents and voltages with frequencies that are
integer multiples of the 50 Hz fundamental frequency. These
higher frequencies are form of electrical distortion known as
power system harmonics. Power system harmonics are
produced by nonlinear loads or devices that draw non-
sinusoidal currents. Examples of common sources of
harmonics are transformers, adjustable speed drives, power
electronics loads and so forth. The harmonic producing loads
can be divided into three main categories that are, large
number of distributed non-linear components of small
ratings; large and continuously and randomly varying non-
linear loads; and large static power converters and
transmission system-level power electronic devices.
Harmonics can be much more deteriorate if other power
quality problems such as resonance and voltage unbalance
also occurs at the same time.
These non-fundamental frequencies or harmonic
distortions can be classified into two types, notably voltage
harmonic and current harmonic. The effects of voltage
harmonic distortions are voltage sag, swell and fluctuation,
which are mainly caused by sudden loading of the system at
point of common coupling, large neutral currents due to
unbalanced loading, improper grounding etc. The primary
effects of current harmonic distortions on the other hand are
power factor reduction, poor utilization of distribution wiring
plant, high current flow in the neutral line of four-wire three
phase system, excessive over heating of line cable etc.[1].
Harmonic pollutions in the power system can be mitigated by
adding passive and/or active power filters to the system;
utilizes auto-transformer to cancel low order harmonics; and
using phase shifted on the secondary transformer and/or
those that had high level reactance between primary and
secondary windings [2].
Traditionally, passive shunt LC filters is used in
suppressing harmonics in power system. Nevertheless, it has
three obvious limitations which are; the source impedance
strongly influences the filtering characteristics, parallel
resonance may occur with the source impedance, and bulky
in size with fixed compensation characteristics. To solve the
limitations of passive filter, active power filter is introduced.
Basically, active power filter is a power electronic converter
incorporating energy-storage element. There are two types of
active power filter which are shunt active power filter and
series active power filter. These two typical active filter is
distinguished by connection with the power lines. By means
of shunt connected active power filters, which can be
regarded as a kind of source current compensating for the
current harmonics drawn by non-linear loads. However, the
cost of shunt active filters is relatively high and they are not
preferable for a large-scale system since the power capacity
of the filter is directly proportional to the load current to be
compensated. In addition, their compensating performance is
better in the current-type harmonic source than in the
voltage-type harmonic source [3]. Thus, to overcome
harmonics distortion generated by voltage fed type
harmonics-producing loads, the series active filter was
introduced at the end of the 1980s. Such filter acts as a kind
of harmonic isolator, since it provides a high impedance for
the harmonics while providing a zero impedance for the
fundamental. Besides, it reduces the need for protection of
the loads because it injects series harmonic voltage source
into the supply line through injecting transformer. In
addition, the series active power filter can regulate the point
of common coupling voltage at a desired value by controlling
the inverter output in order to compensate distorted utility
voltage.
Combination system of series active filter and passive filter
is introduced to complement each others. Since series active
filter behaves like an active impedance, which not causing
any voltage drop for the fundamental component, instead it
forces the load current harmonics into the passive filter.
Therefore, series active filter improves the filtering
characteristics of passive filter and load power factor in such
way of compensating the the reactive power required by the
load. On the other hand, such combination system makes
possible to significantly reduce the rating of the series active
filter. Hence, this configuration is also well known as hybrid
active power filter since it inherits the efficiency of passive
filters and the improved performance of active filter. Ref. [4]
proposed adaptive fuzzy deviding frequency-control method
for hybrid active power filter is an example for a new control
technique in compensating current harmonics. Considering
all advantages and limitations of the combined system, the
objective of this simulation studies is to mitigate source
current harmonics drawn by typical harmonics-producing
loads specifically three phase diode rectifier with smoothing
dc capacitor to comply with international standards such as
IEEE519-1992 and IEC61000, and evaluates the
performance of the combined filter system.
In this paper, a control scheme based on SRF is
introduced. It works well by compensating source current
harmonics and source voltage unbalance using a series
hybrid active power filter. For unbalance voltage
compensation, the desired fundamental component is derived
from positive sequence component of the unbalance voltage.
Then, an all-pass filter is implemented, giving a desired
phase shift without magnitude reduction. The derived
reference fundamental component then is used as fundmental
current and voltage reference for current harmonics
compensation. Next, these calculated compensated control
signals is fed to the SVPWM-VSI in order to generate the
compensating voltages for mitigation of source current
harmonics. The organization of this paper begins with the
system configuration, followed by control scheme, before
coming to the results and discussion, and ended with
conclusions and acknowledgement. The reference papers
used in writing this paper is listed on the last part of the
paper.
II. SYSTEM CONFIGURATION
Fig. 1 shows the power circuit topology of a combination
series active filter with shunt passive filters on three phase
system, feeding non-linear loads which is a three phase
bridge diode rectifier with smoothing dc capacitor. The
designed LC passive filters is single-tuned at 5th and 7th
harmonic frequency, both are parallel connected to the power
line before the load. Installation of such passive filter in the
vicinity of the non-linear load due to its responsibility as a
harmonic sink path for the tuned harmonic frequency, and
also helps in lowering the power rating of active power filter.
A three-phase voltage source inverter (VSI) is connected in
series with the power line via three single phase series
coupling transformer in order to inject the compensation
voltage. This VSI is three phase bridge configuration consist
of six insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) switch
connected with anti-parallel diodes and snubber circuit, is fed
by SVPWM control signal from the controller.
Harmonic mitigation by active filters is entirely depends
on modulation method where SVPWM technique has distinct
advantages and displays very good characteristics over this
matters. SVPWM has the following advantages over other
control schemes in terms of the use factor of the DC side
voltage is high; switching losses are low; in applications such
as motor drives it can be conveniently used as flux tracking
control or current control; and also it is easy to digitally
implement the modulation scheme [5], [6]. Fig. 2 indicates
the basic switching and sectors applied in SVPWM
technique. In order to implement SVPWM following steps
needs to be determined. Firstly, determination of stationary
d-q reference frame vectors v
d
, v
q
and reference voltage
vector v
ref
and angle ; next step is to determine the time
duration T
1
, T
2
and T
0
; and lastly, to determine the switching
time of each switch applied in VSI. For the simulation study
using Matlab/Simulink, only v
d
, v
q
, v
ref
and is required for
SVPWM generator block.
The turn ratio of the series coupling transformer
connecting the active power filter to the power line is chosen
to be 1:1 ratio. This type of transformer is not only isolate
SVPWM-VSI from the power line, but also matching the
voltage and current rating of SVPWM inverter with that of
the power line. The harmonic-producing load is a three-phase
diode rectifier with capacitive dc load having characteristics
of voltage-type harmonics. Smoothing dc capacitor
capacitance value is 1000 (F), while load resistance is 50
( ). System parameters used in the simulation is depicted on
Table 1. Hence, with implementation of Matlab/Simulink, in
particular SimPowerSys, simulation and performance of the
system is executed well.















Figure 1. Series Hybrid Power Filter Circuit Configuration















Figure 2. Basic switching vectors and sectors [6]

TABLE I
SYSTEM PARAMETERS
Parameters Values
Input voltage Vs=110 (Vpeak)
5
th
LC filter L=2.7 (mH), C=150 (F)
7
th
LC filter L=2.07 (mH), C=100 (F)
DC link capacitor C=2200 (F)
VSI output filter L=1.0 (mH), C=2.5 (F)
Switching frequency fs=3 (kHz)
Series coupling transformer 1 (kVA), 110/110 (Vpeak)

III. CONTROL SCHEME
For accurate estimation of the fundamental component,
two methods are dominant and widely used in reference
generation control; SRF control theory is utilized for the
proposed system [7], [8]. It has been confirmed that SRF
controller achieves significant performance improvement for
active filter implementation without any assumptions
regarding supply power quality. Practically the series active
filter is controlled in a manner where there is no impedance
at fundamental frequency and insertion of gain K ()
between source and load at harmonic frequency.

A. Positive Sequence Component and Source Phase Angle
Calculation
Based on series active filter control used in [7], derivation
of balanced positive-sequence components from unbalanced
voltages but without predicted reference voltages, control of
the system begins to be designed. The balanced positive
components is derived from unbalanced sets can be
expressed in equation below,




(1)




The j meaning phase shift angle of 90
0
, is obtained using
all-pass filter which is given using the following equation,

(2)

Here, b=377 (rad/s) and c=/2. The variables e
a(+)
, e
b(+)
,
and e
c(+)
, the balanced positive sequence components is used
to derive source phase angle, by employing d-q
transformation, as depicted in (3),

(3)


where,
(4)



B. Compensation of Source Voltage Unbalance
Employs (3) and (4), the d-q quantities then are
transformed into SRF based on equation proposed by [7],

(5)


where, the superscript e means a quantity in SRF. Thus,
required fundamental component of balanced source voltage
is obtained from,

(6)


K
u
is a gain to recover the required fundamental magnitude
of source voltage that is derived based on the following
equation,
(7)

Using (6), reference voltage for unbalance compensation
is determined by,

(8)

C. Current Harmonics Compensation Scheme
Two compensation schemes according to harmonic source
type will be performed. Initially, reference generation for
voltage compensating for current harmonics due to the
voltage-type harmonic source is derived. The source side
harmonic current, i
sh
is expressed as,

(9)

If e
sh
, v
c
and v
Lh
are harmonic of source voltage, injected
voltage, and load voltage harmonic, respectively. Whereby,
z
sh
represents source side harmonic impedance. Given the
reference voltage for current harmonic compensation, v
c
*
is
expressed as,
(10)
The harmonic source current is suppressed to be zero
provided that the source voltage is assumed to be sinusoidal.
Since z
sh
is so small that can be neglected, and v
c
has no
fundamental component, hence, v
Lh
is can be assumed using
following equation,
(11)
Avoiding additional voltage sensor, the estimated load
voltage is obtained from,
(12)
Here, e
s
and i
s
are source voltage and current respectively,
while v
L
is load voltage. Source impedance z
s
is assumed to
be negligible because it is usually 2%-5% p.u. [8]. Secondly,
reference voltage compensating for the current-type
harmonic source is calculated from the harmonic current
comes from the source side, which is equal to
(13)

( )
( ) +
+
=
ds
qs
e
e
1
tan
( )
( ) ( ) ( )
( )
( )
( ) ( )
( )
3
3
2
+ +
+
+ + +
+

=

=
b c
ds
c b a
qs
e e
e
e e e
e
( )
( )
( )
{ }
{ }
{ }

+
+
+
b a
b a
c
a c
a c
b
c b
c b
a
c
b
a
e e
j
e e
e
e e
j
e e
e
e e
j
e e
e
e
e
e
3 2
1
2 2 3
1
3 2
1
2 2 3
1
3 2
1
2 2 3
1
( ) ( ) s X
c bs s
c bs s
s Y
+ +
+
=
2
2
sh
Lh c sh
sh
z
v v e
i

=
Lh c
v v =
*
L bal Lh
v e v =
s s c s L
z i v e v =
( )
s s vh h
i i K v =
1
*
( )
( )
( )
( )

+
+
+
+
ds
qs
e
d
e
q
e
e
e
e


cos sin
sin cos
( )
( )
( )

+
+
+
c
b
a
u
bal c
bal b
bal a
e
e
e
K
e
e
e
,
,
,
( )
e
q
u
e
E
K
+
=

c bal c
b bal b
a bal a
vc
vb
va
e e
e e
e e
v
v
v
,
,
,
*
*
*
Whereby, i
s1
is fundamental component
This value is derived from the following eq





The respective mean value of source c
in SRF, I
sq
e
and I
sd
e
are given by,



Thus, by combining (4) and (6), new re
the current harmonics compensation is
expressed by,


Here, K
vh
is is a controller gain which is
an equivalent impedance of the shunt pa
achieve optimized and good performance
reference voltage and balance voltage mag
both is set to 1.

D. Control of SVPWM-VSI
Therefore, from (8) and (16) the refe
current harmonics compensation
compensation are add together to become,

The resultant reference voltage or con
then is transformed into d-q axis, after
into 2 phase quantities from 3 phase quan
transformation to obtain v
d,c
and v
q,c
. These
used to calculate for the magnitude and a
voltage vector, v
ref,c
. Hence,


and,

As a result these values are used in gen
signal fired by SVPWM.

E. Passive LC Filter and SVPWM Harmon
In order to tuned LC shunt passiv
frequency for specific harmonic frequ
calculated first, hence, using well-known f
filter presents good filtering characteristics
the resonant frequency [3]. Given L
f
and
filter inductance and capacitance, therefor
resonant frequency, f
r
is as follows,


In order to determine the sharpness of tu
quality factor, Q, which can be formu
below,

sc
sb
sa

i
i
i
cos sin
sin cos
866 . 0
866 . 0
0
5 . 0
5 . 0
1
1
1
1

e
sd
e
sq
I
I
sin
3
2
sin sin
cos
3
2
cos cos
3
2

( )
Lh s s vh h
v i i K v + =
1
*
* * *
v h c
v v v + =
2 2
, ,
,
c q c d
c ref
v v v + =

=

c d
c q
v
v
,
, 1
tan
f f
r
C L
f
2
1
=
t of source current.
quation,
(14)
current transformed

(15)
eference voltage for
formed, which is
(16)
s far bigger than Z
f
,
assive filter [9]. To
e in controlling the
gnitude, K
vh
and K
h
,
erence voltages for
and unbalance

(17)
ntrol voltage signal
being transformed
ntities using Clarke
e two values then is
angle for reference
(18)
nerating the gating
nics Filtering
ve filter, resonant
uency need to be
fact that the passive
s around vicinity of
d C
f
, are respective
re, the equation for
(19)
uning frequency or
ulated as equation


Let, X
L
, X
C
and R represent in
reactance and resistance respec
is chosen to be range between
hand, to tune harmonic order
following equation,


Even though SVPWM-VSI
the magnitude is very low an
higher because it totally depen
Since f
n
is tuned frequency, w
frequency. Seeing from primar
Z
pwm
is the amplitude of the sum
and load impedance, Z
L
. If a i
corresponding equation can be r


At switching frequency, rela
filter parameters has to be
condition below, [7], hence,
where X
Cr
and X
Lr
are th
reactance of the ripple filter
current caused by switching vol
shunted by C
r
, the ripple filter c
IV. RESULTS AN

























Figure 3. (Upper tra
(Lower trace)

e
sd
e
sq
I
I

sc
sb
sa
i
i
i
3
2
3
2

n
f
f
n =
1
pwm
Z =
Cr
X <<
X
R
nX
Q
L
= =
(20)
nductive reactance, capacitive
ctively. Usually, a value of Q
20 and 100 [3]. On the other
r, n is calculated using the
(21)
generates harmonics, usually
nd PWM harmonics order is
nds on switching frequency.
whereas, f
1
is the fundamental
ry of the series transformer,
m of the source impedance, Z
s
is the transformer ratio, thus,
represented as follows,
(22)
ationship between the ripple
satisfied according to the
(23)
he capacitive and inductive
respectively. The harmonics
ltage ripple, V
r
are completely
apacitor.
ND DISCUSSION

ace) Before filtering.
After filtering.
L
C
X
X
=
L s
Z Z
a
+ =
2
1
pwm Lr
Z X <<
nR
X
C




























Figure 4. (Upper trace) THD spectrum before filtering
(Lower trace) THD spectrum after filtering

A simulation study used the following unbalanced phase
voltages of the source,



(24)
As for the results, Fig. 3 indicates two different plot of
phase-a source current in steady state. Upper trace shows
severely distorted source current harmonics before filtering,
but after filtered by hybrid power filter, the source current
looks smooth and clean as shown at lower trace. This is due
to harmonics produced by diode rectifier with RC load
flowing back to the source that in turn affected the source
current. Obviously, the current effective value has been
dropped to more than half, while it is measured a total up to
68% content of total harmonic distortion (THD), where, 2/3
of it is 3
rd
harmonic alone. Why 3
rd
harmonic is more
dominant than expected 5
th
or 7
th
harmonic? It is because of
source voltage unbalance influence. However, after
combination filter system is installed on the power circuit,
source current harmonics is significantly decreased due to the
harmonics has been mitigated. Measured THD for filtered
source current shows only 0.5% harmonics left in the current.
Hence, source current looks almost fundamental waveform in
shape.
Fig. 4 depicts two different condition of bar plots for in
total 25 order of spectrum harmonics which is calculated
using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) algorithm. Upper trace
plot which is the uncompensated source current owns
substantial distorted harmonics spectrum that can be
observed. From the upper plot, it can be seen that dominant
harmonics such as 3
rd
, 5
th
and 7
th
are high in magnitude,
whereas the much higher order harmonics can be considered
much lower in magnitude. The plot also shows typical
harmonic producing load characteristics that as the order of
harmonic increased, the magnitudes are decreasing. Provided
that for lower trace plot, harmonic order other than
fundamental is hardly to be seen. There is significant
reduction of harmonics content in the source current after
filtering. Clearly, the outcome has surpassed well below the
standard level of 5% for IEEE519-1992. Although the
passive filters only tuned the 5
th
and 7
th
harmonics, the 3
rd

harmonic is mainly compensated through series active filter
that provides high resistance for the harmonics but allowing
only fundamental component flows into the source current.
V. CONCLUSIONS
Indeed, it can be concluded that installation of the
proposed hybrid filter system increases the performance of
the power flow from upstream to downstream besides system
efficiency increased dramatically. Obviously, the simulation
of hybrid filter system presented in this paper successfully
compensates harmonic distortion of source current to the
level that comply the standard of IEEE519-1992 and
IEC61000.
VI. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to thank and appreciate IPPP, UM
for funding and support the research project, PS135/2008B.
VII. REFERENCES
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( )
( )
0
0
130 sin 90
130 sin 90
sin 110
+ =
=
=
t e
t e
t e
c
b
a