Development and application of shunt active filters for three-phase four-wire systems

Author(s)

Marcelo Gradella Villalva

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Faculdade de Engenharia Elétrica e de Computação
• Defense date: 2005-10-03

Examining board members

Ernesto Ruppert Filho; Azauri Albano de Oliveira Junior; José Antenor Pomilio; Maria Cristina Dias Tavares

• Advisor: Ernesto Ruppert Filho

Abstract

Electricity power quality has gained increased importance in the past few years. The growing number of power electronicsbased loads has created a preoccupation about harrnonic distortion in electric systems. Electricity power quality is an important issue both for energy utilities and consumers. Harrnonic poIlution may cause severe problems to electricity utilities and consumer networks such as system instability, voltage distortions, power losses, electromagnetic interference and harrnful resonances. The use ofharrnonic ltering equipment has become necessary and many solutions have been studied. Traditional passive devices such as tuned shunt lters and series reactors present disadvantages such as bulky sizes, high costs, increased losses, smaIl effectiveness, dependence on the parameters of the electric system and yet more risk of resonance with other elements of the network. Recent deve10pments in the major of power electronics and digital processing have made possible the pplication of electronic power conditioners such as series and shunt active lters. Active power lters may be used to overcome the drawbacks of passive devices. Series active power lters are used to reduce voltage distortions of electric systems. Shunt active power lters are used to mitigate harrnonic currents originated by nonlinear loads. The latter may be also used for increasing power factor and for balancing line currents in four-wire systems with unbalanced loads. This work is concerned with the application of shunt active power lters to three-phase four-wire electric systems. Power theories, compensation methods and control systems are discussed. The application of a se1ective compensation method based on adaptive neural networks and the employment of a neural network in the current controlIer are the main contributions of this work. These and other subjects were experimentalIy tested with a prototype of an active. power lter built in laboratory (AU)