Bulletin of the Polish Academy of Sciences: Technical Sciences

Abstract

This paper presents a concept of a shunt active power filter, which is able to provide more precise mapping of its input current drawn from a power line in a reference signal, as compared to a typical filter solution. It can be achieved by means of an interconnection of two separate power electronics converters making, as a whole, a controlled current source, which mainly determines the quality of the shunt active filter operation. One of these power devices, the "auxiliary converter", corrects the total output current, being a sum of output currents of both converters, toward the reference signal. The rated output power of the auxiliary converter is much lower than the output power of the main one, while its frequency response is extended. Thanks to both these properties and the operation of the auxiliary converter in a continuous mode, pulse modulation components in the filter input current are minimized. Benefits of the filter are paid for by a relatively small increase in the complexity and cost of the system. The proposed solution can be especially attractive for devices with higher output power, where, due to dynamic power loss in power switches, a pulse modulation carrier frequency must be lowered, leading to the limitation of the "frequency response" of the converter. The concept of such a system was called the "hybrid converter topology". In the first part of the paper, the rules of operation of the active filter based on this topology are presented. Also, the results of comparative studies of filter simulation models based on both typical, i.e. single converter, and hybrid converter topologies, are discussed.