A novel active power filter for reactive power compensation and harmonic suppression

A new single-phase active power filter for reactive power compensation and harmonic suppression is proposed. Besides the general performance of other active power filters, it also has the feature that it can maintain the mains current as a sine-wave and correct the displacement power factor close to unity even when the mains voltage is distorted. A prototype of this active power filter is developed and tested under rectifier load to verify its performance. The test results show that the proposed scheme can compensate the reactive power and suppress harmonics of the nonlinear load effectively.