PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF A SIMPLE POWER QUALITY CONDITIONER FOR MITIGATION OF HARMONICS

Abstract

Power quality issues are gaining significant attention due to the increase in use of equipment that are sensitive to distortions or dips in supply voltages. At the same time, the usage of static power converters has been growing tremendously to provide controlled electric power in various applications such as arc furnaces, computer power supplies and adjustable speed drives. The nonlinear characteristics of these power converters create poor power factor, low system efficiency, interference in nearby communication networks and disturbance to other consumers due to increased harmonics, negative sequence and reactive power components of current from AC mains. To curb this, regulations apply in many places that limit the distortion and unbalance that a customer can inject to a distribution system. These regulations may require the installation of active filter on customer premises to reduce harmonics. In this paper behavior of a simple converter circuit has been analyzed experimentally to find its effectiveness for cost effective solution as power conditioner. The circuit consists of four diodes and one MOSFET has been used at the input of a resistive loaded single phase rectifier circuit to mitigate harmonics. It is found that the total harmonic distortion (THD) is reduced; power factor and efficiency are improved. The work has also been simulated by ORCAD simulation software and it is found that simulation results matched closely with those of experimental results.