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n typical distribution systems the proliferation of

non-linear loads results in a
deterioration of the quality of
voltage waveforms at the point of
common coupling of various
loads. This has led to the proposal
of more stringent requirements
regarding power quality; standards such I E E E - 5 1 9 reflect
these preoccupations. Passive filters have been used to limit the
flow of harmonic currents in distribution systems. However they
introduce resonances i n t h e
power system. They also tend to Fig. Three phase activefilter.
be bulky and the design is comphase three-wire active filter cannot adequately replex, particularly if the number of harmonic comduce or eliminate line current harmonics.
ponents to be canceled increases
A number of papers propose compensation of
With improvements in power and control cirboth harmonic and reactive power together
cuits, active filters are becoming a viable alterna[5}-[7}.This article deals only with harmonic comtive to passive filters A number of topologies have
pensation, and evaluates the performance of threebeen proposed [1]-{4}Voltage source structures
phase four wire active filters for the general case.
(Fig 1)present excellent performance characterisThe filter (Fig. 2), uses three independent current
tics, both in single and three phase configurations.
controllers acting on half-bridge inverters.
Most of the literature on three phase configuraThe performance of the active filter is evaluated
tions, however, deals with balanced non-linear
for the following cases: i) three-wire and four-wire
loads and balanced line conditions. However, in a
connections, ii) unbalanced loads, iii) unbalanced line
number of installations, four wire systems are used
voltages. The theoretical analysis is included to show
Furthermore, if non-linear single-phase loads are
the operation of the active filter in the general case.
present, or the three phase load is unbalanced, the
The article demonstrates that the neutral current is
line currents, both in terms of fundamental and
considerably reduced without the need for an addiharmonic components, are unbalanced and neutral
tional active filter {SI or a four leg active filter [9}.
currents flow. In many cases the amplitude of the
The next two sections describe the operation of
neutral current exceeds the line current [ll} In
the active filter. The quality of the supply current,
this case the sum of the instantaneous harmonic
the magnitude and components of the neutral curcurrents is not equal to zero As a result phase interrents are investigated in the following section. Deactions between the lines appear and the three-

This article appeared in its originalfirm at the 1996 IAS Annual Meeting, San Diego, California. Haddad is with
M T E Corp.ofMnomoneeFalls, WI. Thomas is with Alpes Technologies,Annecy, France.J o h is with the Department
of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Concordia University, 1455 de Maisonneuve W., Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H3G-1 M8. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE. Jaafari is with ESIEE-Amiens, Amiens, France.
lEfE Industry Applicotions Mogozine

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September/Octoher

1998

1077-2618/98/$10.000 1998 IEEE

sign issues such as filter capacity, capacitor voltage

level and line inductor value are addressed in the next
three sections. Experimental results for a 3-kVA
IGBT active filter are presented.

Description Of the Active Filter

The general topology for the four wire active filter
investigated in this arti'cle is given in Fig. 2. The dc
bus uses a common capacitor, with the center-tap
connected to the line neutral. The PWM pattern is
generated using a constant frequency ramp comparison technique. The ac side of the converter is
connected to the mains via a synchronous link reactor Lbf(Fig. 2), which also serves as a first order
low-pass filter. The humonic component of the
load is extracted and serves as the current reference.
For harmonic extraction, two options are available:
i) use of a band-stop filter centered around the
line frequency;
ii) isolating the fundamental component by
band-pass filter then subtracting it from the
load current.
Option (ii) is chosen because phase shift and
magnitude of the residual currents are in the practical implementation lower than for option (i).
To generate the gating signals, the error between the actual current and the reference current
is processed through a PI controller, then the output current error is compared with a fixed amplitude and frequency triangular wave, Fig. 3. Thus,
the output current of the converter has well defined
spectral line frequencies for the switching frequency components. A high current loop bandwidth is required to cancel higher order load
harmonics. It is designed to have a bandwidth as
close as possible to the PWM modulator bandwidth, which is about half the switching frequency. The coefficierits of the PI controller are
selected according to 171.
Voltage control of the dc bus is performed by
adjusting the small amount of real power flowing
into the dc capacitor, thus compensating for the
converter and system losses. The voltage loop is designed to be at least 10 times slower than the current loop, hence the two loops can be considered
decoupled.

Three Phose Active Filter

The operation of the conventional three phase active filter, Fig. 1, is investigated for the general
case. It is assumed that the supply feeds three
non-equal single phase non-linear loads, connected
between the lines ancl the neutral. The currents
drawn by the loads are non sinusoidal and have all
the odd harmonics in'cluding triplen. The single
phase load current can be expressed as:

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iN

2c
&f,N

Fig. 2. Four wire half-bridge active filter.

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Fig. 3. Per phase current regulator.

The currents in the supply, without active filtering, are given by:

CiJ+i,

=o.

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J=Q,h,c

where j=phase a,b,c, and i~ is the current in the

neutral wire.
The absence of a fourth wire in the active filter
requires that:

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(4)
The uncompensated part of the current is given by:

j=a,h,i

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Combining (3), (4)and ( 5 ) gives:

C d ( t ) = -i,

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+ j z , : j ~ l } ~

(6)

Supply side currents are given by:

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Equation (2), (4)and (7) yield:

/E lndustry Applications Magazine

September/October I 998

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The theoretical analysis shows that with a three

wire three phase active filter:
i) the line current harmonics remain partially
uncompensated, (8);
ii) the amplitude of the harmonic currents in
the neutral wire is not reduced.
Moreover, the equations show that the active filter
cannot compensate the line currents even when
balanced non linear single phase loads are present,
since triplen components cannot be supplied.

Three Half-Bridge Topology

Comparing (3) and (12) one see that only the

fundamental component remains:

The theoretical analysis shows that in the general case:

i) the line currents are compensated, (10);
ii) the amplitude of the neutral current is reduced, per (13).

Spectral Analysis

Operation
Connecting the capacitor midpoint to the neutral
wire allows one to implement per-phase based current regulators, and the phases are totally decoupled.
The currents generated by the active filter are
given by:
'sf

The current in the neutral wire before compensation contains all the odd harmonics, including the
triplen, and its expression is given by:

The rms current of i, is given by:

(9)

,I - ' I , h

Supply side currents are obtained from (7):

ir,, - iI,l

(10)

Current in the neutral wire if the active filter is

connected is given by:
i,,N

=-

i,,I

The current in the fourth wire of the active filter

contains all the odd harmonics including the triplen:

'

I =a,b , c

(11)

Combining (10) and (11) yields:

i*,N

=-

ij,l

j =a,b , c

Single Phase load

(12)

After compensation the current in the neutral

wire has a 60 Hz component which is the contribution of unbalanced line currents. The rms value of

Balanced loads

(3xlQ)
h

Typical Unbalanced loads

Neutral Current

Neutral Current

1 .o

0.57

0.68

2.04

1.46

0.287

0.1 1

0.083

0.073

0.0219

0.127

11

10.036

0.032

2.06

1.58

IC!

IN

IFF hdustry ApplicufionsMuguzine

Sepfember/October I 998

0.1 1

the current in the neutral wire ar the supply side is

given by [Ill:

Also, in the general case of an unbalanced load

and ac supply, the instantaneous dc bus voltage is
given by:
udr

=v, +

,#=2,4.6.

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Fig. 4. Rating of the active filter us load THDi

EA", s i n ( n . w , t + y , ) .

(18)

Equation (18) indicates that the harmonicspectrum of the dc bus voltage contains even components at frequencies, n x f , with n=2,4,6... and that
the amplitude of these components depends upon
the load to be compensated and the line voltage unbalance. When the loads are balanced, the neutral
current contains only ttiplen harmonics, while the
dc bus voltage contains components at frequencies
6xnxf(n=1,2,..). In this case, after compensation,
the neutral wire is exempt of low frequency components. On the other hand, the return wire of the active filter carries the neutral harmonic current of
the load. Proper operation of the active filter requires ideally a constant dc bus voltage. Therefore
the value of the capacitor must be large enough to
keep the dc bus ripple within limits.
To illustrate the problems associated with single phase non-linear loads, diode rectifiers with capacitive output are used. With rectifier conduction
angles of 60, the neutral current could be 1.73
times the phasecurrent for balanced loads [lll.Table l gives the magnitude ofthe neutral current for
two cases.
Table 1shows that the magnitudeofthe neutral
current is 127 % of the line current when loads are
unbalanced. It is worst when the load are balanced,
whereitsmagnitudereachesavalueof 165 %ofthe
line current.

Design Considerations
Design Procedure
This section details the design procedure used for
the configuration of Fig. 2 and is based on the design of a single phase active filter with center tap
capacitor. The switching frequency must be chosen
high enough to cancel harmonics up to a given frequency, theoretically it must be set to twice this
maximum harmonic frequency. The design of the
inductor and the choice of dc bus voltage are based
upon the following criteria: (i) limiting the high
frequency components of the injected currents; the
amplitude at the switching freqoency is limited in
this design to 5% of the rated load current, (ii) the

Frequsncy in Hz

Pig. 5 . Activefilter capacity w frequency.

instantaneous dildt generated by the active filter

should be greater than the dildt of the harmonic
component of the load, so that proper harmonic
cancellation can take place.
The first design criterion yields:

_I d_. / _, " , 1,

"a/,/,"

1, .(f, l f ) . w . L ,

<5%,
(19)

where Id,,,,"
is the rms value of the converter current at the switching frequency, V*/,,* is the rms
value ofthe converter output voltage at theswitching frequency, I is the tms value of the fundamental load current andfwis the switching frequency.
The second criterion yields:

Equations (19) and (20) allow the computation

of minimum values for Lafand Vdcindependently.
However, the selection of Vdc and La/ require a
compromise. T o cancel the harmonics perfectly,
the converter must generate a high diId$>which requires a small inductance. However decreasing the
inductance increases the current ripple and as acesult thesupplysideexhibitsacurrent withahigher

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total harmonic distortion. The same effect is observed for the dc bus voltage. High dildt can be obtained by increasing the dc voltage, which in turn
increases the current ripple generated by the active
filter.
The capacitors are designed to limit the dc voltage ripple to a specified value, typically 1 to 2%.
The procedure to design the capacitor is detailed in
{lo). However, in our case the capacitor should be
designed for the worst case, since the active filter
will operate in several modes (single phase or unbalanced load). The variation of the dc bus voltage
is given by:

The capacitor value is therefore given by:

The value ofthe capacitor is load dependent and

simulation is one way of evaluating the worst possible case. It will be shown in the next subsection
that the worst case occurs when the active filter is
compensating a single phase load.
The rating of the active filter in the general case
is given by:

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where

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for h=3,5,....
The percentage ripple of the dc bus voltage is
defined as:

andH=V,

.dcI:
b =2

Defining T H D ; as:

,
and replacing P , ,Q Land H in (24),the rating of the
active filter is expressed as:

If only harmonic compensation is required, then

the rating of the active filter is obtained by setting
Q,= 0 in the numerator of ( 2 4 )
S, --

*J

Scoav

THDj

(28)

Fig 4 gives the rating as a function of the load

THD,, for several displacement power factors The
curves show that if reactive power JS combined
with harmonic compensation, the rating of the active filter is substantially increased
The design equations for the single and three
phase cases are general and are valid for any type of
load

Design Example
Fig. 6. Experimental results. (a)Load and supply currents, (6) Spectrum
of line and load currents.
I

/E Industry Appliiafions Magazine

September/Ortober 1998

I ) Loadspecijktion: In this example the mains is

supplying three unbalanced single phase loads,

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1 toad side

For a single phase operation, the capacitor value

is selected according to equation (23). Simulation
results show that:

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For balanced three phase operation, from (23)

we obtain:

--

[rwi

1 59.4

1 45.5

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32 %

Active filter dc bus voltage

For unbalanced three phase operation, (23)gives:

Supply side

(34)

4.8 %

4.3%

Choosing Y < 2% (AVdc<5V ) for single phase

operation one obtains:

4.6 %

Cmln= 850pF.

connected between the lines and the neutral. Each

load consists of a diode rectifier with a capacitive
output filter. The data for the rated single phase
load is:

(35)

For the same percentage of ripple, calculations

show that for a typical unbalanced case C m,n =5 50pF
and for the balanced case Cmln=230pF. It is obvi-

V,=60 V, I1=6.8.4, (dildt)max=25kAls,

L = l mH, and C=3300pF.

2 ) Active Filter: The switching frequency is chosen

equal to 10.3 kHz. The modulation index must be
as close as possible to :L.O, so that the converter ac
side voltage output has low harmonic content; in
our case, the modulation index is chosen equal to
0.9. Design equation (19) yields:

Using the maximum dildt (obtained experimentally for 140' on the ac waveform), (20) becomes:
25.103 <:

0.5.v, - 5 5
La/

('101

The values for V, and L are extracted by itera"/.

tions from (29) and (30). WithV, = 265V, we obtain:
2.65mH < L , < 3 . l m H .

(31)

--

2 m sldiv

5 A Idiv

1'
Ih\

Fig. 7. Supply current (a)without AF, (b) with AF.

lEEf Industry Applications Magazine

Sepfember/October 1998

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Fig. 8. Neutrul current with und without AF.

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3 Neutral Curre t -Without AF

2 Ndiv

Neutral Curr

t -With AF

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(b)

Fig. 9 . Spectrum of the neutral current ( a ) without

filtering, ( 6 ) with filtering.

ous that the single phase operation represents the

worst case, thus the capacitor will be designed for
this mode
For this example, the active filter components
are therefore chosen as follows
L,j=?mH, C=900pF, vdL=265v,
and&,= 10.3 kHz.

/FEE industry Appbtions Magazine I Septemher/Ocioher 1998

10.5

7.8

4.1

THD,

62.6 %

70.5 %

a4 %

(Ir,h @ frw)/lloa~,

5.2 %

7.2 %

14 %

THD,

53%

73%

142%

/oad,l

(A)

Single Phase operation-Experimental Results

The active filter is connected to a
single phase rectifier with capacitive output (see the previous
section) Design data for the capacitor and the switching frequency are as previously given
therein The compensation capacity of the active filter is measured, and experimental results
are shown in Fig 5 Based on the
results of Fig 5 and on the design
data, the active filter is able to
provide an rms current of 6A at
300 Hz
Fig 6 shows the supply current with and without active fil-

Three single-phase diode bridge rectifiers are connected between the line and the neutral to form unbalanced loads. Experimental results are shown in
Figs. 7-9. Load data and the performance of the active filter are given in Table 4.
Experimental results show that the active filter
i s able to operate under load unbalance, and compensation of the line currents i s accompanied with
a reduction of the neutral current, Figs. 8 and 9.

5 Ndiv

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I oad

Experimental Results-Unbalanced
Operation

~~

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ter, and the corresponding spectrum.

Experimental results show that the low frequency components of the load current are nearly
canceled (less than 1% residual) and the remaining
dominant harmonic i s at switching frequency and
is limited to 5%.
Table 2 summarizes different test results for a
single phase operation. The load line inductance is
varied from 1 m H to S mH. The value of the active
filter inductance is kept constant to 3 mH in all
cases. Results show that the dc bus voltage could be
decreased when the load reactor is increased without compromising the filtering capability. This i s
the result of a decrease in the dzldt compensation
capability.

LOAD
~~

1x34

5%

Ix 34

-THDi<

(balanced)

-neutral current
reduced

Ix 34I
(unbal.)

-line current
harmonics eliminated
-neutral current reduced

Unbalsnains
(+ 10%)

THD, < 5 %

Before compensation, the peak current in the neutral wire is 14 A (140 (96of the peak line current).
After compensation, the peak current has dropped
to 5.36A(50 % ofthel~eaklinecurrent),thusareduction of 60% was acnieved. The spectrum of the
neutral wire contains 613 Hz and 10.3 kHz (switching frequency) components. The fundamental
component exists because the currents are unbalanced. In all three lines, the residual currents are reduced to less than 1%. Also the rms current at the
switching frequency in all three lines have the same
value. As a result each 1ine has a different THD, relative to the phase current, and since the fundamental currents in lines B and C are less than in line A,
theyexhibithigherTHD,asshowninTable 3. The
harmonic at the switching frequency can be reduced easily, using a small passive filter at the output of the converter.

Fxperimentu/ Resuhs-Unbalanced Muins

In this section, the active filter is tested under unbalanced mains voltagt. (. 10 %). The supply feeds
a three phase diode bridge rectifier with capacitive
output. Load current:; and supply voltages are
shown in Fig. 10.
Experimental resul es, when the half bridge active filter and the thrte wire active filter are connected to the load, are shown in Fig. 11.

Performanice Compurisons
The three phase half-bridge active filter was tested
under unbalanced ac lrains voltage (k10 %), three
single phase loads, ancl three single phase unbalanced loads. For comparison purposes, the conventional or the three wire three phase active filter
(neutral wire removed from the center tap of the capacitors) was tested for the same load conditions;
the results are given in Table 4. Experimental results show that in all modes of operation the proposed active filter W I ~ Sable to compensate the
harmonic component of the load perfectly. In addition, harmonic compensation was accompanied
with a reduction in the amplitude of the neutral
wire current. This is in contrast to the conventional
active filter, where operation is perturbed (see low
frequency distortion Fig. 1 l(b)).

Fig. 10. Unbalanced ac mains-three-phase diode rectifier load.

(a) Line to neutral voltages, ( b ) Load Currents.

Acknowredgments
The authors wish to acknowledge the technical and
financial support of the industrial partner, Alpes
Technologies (France) and the financial support
provided by the fonds FCAR (QuCbec).

Conclusion
This article has demonstrated the feasibility of a
three phase active f i l m based on a half-bridge topology. Design guidelines for the power circuit
have been derived anc. applied to a 5 kVA IGBT
laboratory prototype. In the single phase mode, the
active filter can reduce the low fequency harmonic
content in the ac line 110 below 1 % excluding the
harmonics due to switching action of the converter. In the three phase mode, line currents are
corrected under balanced and unbalanced conditions. The neutral current is reduced significantly.

References

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[l]W.M. Grady,M.J. Samoty1,A.H. Noyola, "SurveyofActive

un
Power Line Conditioning Methodologies," IEEE TYUZJ.
Power Delivery, vol. 5 , no.), pp. 1536.1542, July 1990.
121L. Gyugyi, E.C. Strycula, "Active Ac Filters," in Coni: Rec. of
the IEEE IAS, pp. 529-535, October 1976.
131 H. Kawahira, T. Nakamura, S. Nakazawa, M. Nomura,
"Acrivr Fllxr,''

111

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Pruc. of Lhe J I E E - I P E C , pp. 381-992,

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March 1983.
141 C.A. Quinn and N . Mnhan, "Active Filtering of Harmonic
Currents in Three Phase, Four-wire systems with ThreePhase and Single-phase non Linear Loads," in ConJ Rec. of
the IEEE APEC, p p . 829-836, 1992.

llff Industry ApplicationsMagazine

September/October

I998

Fig. 11, Unbalanced ac mains-three-phase diode

rectifier load supply currents. (a) Four wire active
filter compessation, (b) Three wire active filter
compensation.

151 H. Akagi, "Trends in Active Power Line Conditioners,"

IEEE Truns. On Power Electronics, vol. 9 , no. 3 , pp. 263-268,
May 1994.

I61 H.L. Jou, "Performance Comparison of the Three-phase Active Filter Algorithms," IEE Proc.-Gener. Trunsm. Distrib.,
vol. 142, no. 6, Nov. 1995.
171 L.A. Moran, J.W. Dixon, R. R. Wallace, "A Three-phase
Active Power Filter Operating with Fixed Switching Frequency for Reactive Power and Current Harmonic Compensation," IEEE Truns. on Ind. Elec., vol. 4 2 , no. 4 , pp.
402-408, August 1995.
181P. Enjeti, W. Shireen, P. Packebush, I. Pitel, "Analysis and
Design of a New Active Filter to Cancel Neutral Current
Harmonics in Three Phase Four Wire Electric Distribution
Systems," Electric Machines und Poujer S y s t a s , vol. 2 2 , no.?,
pp. 405-421, MayiJune 1994.
r91 %.A. Quinn, N. Mohan, H . Mehta, "A Four Wire, Current-Controlled Converter Provides Harmonic Neutralization in Three-phase, Four-Wire Systems," in ConJ Rec.
IEEE APEC, pp. 841-846, 1993.
1101H.L.Jou, J.C. Wu, H.Y. Chu, "New Single Phase Active
Power Filter," IEE Proceedings-Electric Power Applications,
vol. 141, no. 4 . pp, 207-211, May 1994.
1111 T.M. Gruzs, "A Survey of Neutral Currents in ThreePhase Computer Power Systems," IEEE Truns. on Ind. Elei-.,
vol. 26, no. 4 , pp. 719.725, JulyiAug. 1990.

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