A new method for determining reference compensating currents of the three-phase shunt active power filter

Among various solutions to electric power quality problems, the use of a shunt active power filter (SAPF) has been proven as an effective method to compensate reactive power and to mitigate harmonic currents of nonlinear loads. When designing a SAPF, it is crucial to generate reference currents for determining actual compensating current injections to the point of common coupling. In contrast to the conventional instantaneous reactive power theory that needs coordinate transformations, the new method proposed in this paper is to determine reference compensating currents based on the balance of the instantaneous reactive and active power generated in the SAPF. It is shown that the proposed method is suitable for reactive and harmonic power compensation by using a SAPF. In addition to maintaining the sinusoidal source currents, this method also eliminates the need for installing an energy storage device for reactive power compensation as well as the DC source for the harmonic compensation in the active power filter. Therefore, a simpler design of the SAPF with the minimal line losses can be expected.