Author : M.Sivakrishna and N.Prabhakara Rao

This paper presents a three phase active power conditioner to improve power quality. The wide spread increase of non-linear loads now a days, significant amounts of harmonic currents flows through the power system impedance, causing voltage distortion at the harmonic currents frequencies .The distorted voltage waveform causes harmonic currents to be drawn by other loads connected at the point of common coupling. To overcome this drawback the active power conditioner (APC) is used. It acts as an interface between renewable energy sources and the ac bus of the microgrid. The APC inject energy in the microgrid, compensate current harmonics and correct the power factor. The control strategy allows the line current at point of common coupling (PCC) to be balanced and sinusoidal even when the load is unbalanced and the voltage at the PCC is also balanced. The APC has proved to be an important alternative to compensate current and voltage disturbances in power distribution systems.

Keywords: Active power conditioner, Current hysteresis control, Power quality, Renewable energy source

Article published in International Journal of Current  Engineering  and Technology, Vol.3,No.5(Dec- 2013)