PAPER PRESENTATON
ON
ABSTRACT
This paper presents a fully-digital-
controlled shunt hybrid filter for damping
of harmonic propagation in power
distribution systems. The harmonic
propagation is caused by
resonance between line inductances and
power capacitors installed for power factor
correction. A possible solution to damping
out harmonic propagation is based
on installation of a shunt pure active
filter at the end of a feeder. This paper
proposes a shunt hybrid active filter
characterized by series connection of a
seventh-tuned LC filter per phase and a
small-rated three-phase active filter. Like
the pure filter, the hybrid filter is
connected to the end bus of a feeder. The
capacitor of the LC filter imposes a high
impedance to the fundamental frequency,
so that the fundamental voltage appears
across the capacitor. This unique feature
allows us to directly connect the hybrid
filter to the 6.6-kV power line without
step-down transformers. Furthermore, the
capacitor used in this hybrid filter is
lighter, cheaper and smaller than the
transformer used in the pure filter.
Theoretical analysis, along with
experimental results obtained from a 200-
V, 20-kW laboratory system, verifies the
viability and effectiveness of the proposed
hybrid filter.
I. INTRODUCTION
IN RECENT years, harmonic propagation
has become a serious problem in power
distribution systems. It consists in
harmonic-voltage amplification due to
resonance between line inductances and
shunt capacitors installed for power factor
correction. The worst case occurs under
no-load conditions from a theoretical point
of view. Thus, it may happen at night in a
real power distribution system under light-
load conditions. This harmonic
propagation effect has been studied and
measured in actual power distribution
systems [1], [2]. In order to damp out
harmonic propagation, a shunt pure active
filter based on voltage detection has been
proposed and tested [3]–[8]. This active
filter is controlled in such a way as to act
as a damping resistor for harmonic
frequencies. It has been found that the best
site to install the active filter is at the end
bus of a distribution feeder, thus achieving
harmonic damping throughout the
distribution feeder [3]. The harmonic
propagation may appear in several feeders
within a power distribution network. This
fact makes the treatment of this problem
costly and technically difficult. The cost of
installing several active filters dispersed on
the network should be assumed by the
utility company. On the other hand, the
physical size of a conventional shunt pure
active filter is too large to be installed on
electric poles. To overcome the harmonic
propagation problem, the size and cost of
the present solution must be reduced
drastically. One of the main obstacles is
the transformer required for the shunt pure
active filter.
This paper proposes a new
alternative to harmonic damping in a 6.6-
kV system. It consists of a shunt hybrid
active filter composed of series connection
of a 7th-tuned LC filter per phase and a
small-rated three-phase active filter. Due
to the presence of the LC filter, the
fundamental voltage is decoupled from the
distribution system, thus reducing the
voltage rating of the active filter. This
remarkable feature does not require
any transformer for connecting the
hybrid filter to the 6.6-kV bus. The
replacement of the transformer by the
capacitor included in the LC filter makes
the hybrid filter compact, light and
inexpensive. Hybrid active filters have
been researched and tested [9]–[14]. It is
well known that a hybrid filter
configuration helps to reduce the active
filter rating. Nevertheless, the solutions
presented in the available literature are
intended, not for harmonic damping in
power distribution systems, but for
harmonic compensation of nonlinear
loads. For example, a hybrid filter in [15]
and [16] is the same in circuit
configuration as that in this paper, but
different in control strategy. The hybrid
filter in this paper is based on voltage
detection, and behaves as a damping
resistor for harmonic frequencies. It is
directly installed at the end of a 6.6-kV
distribution feeder, for the purpose of
mitigating harmonic propagation
throughout the feeder. Experimental
results were obtained with a fully-digital
controlled shunt hybrid active filter
connected to a three-phase distribution line
simulator rated at 200-V, 50-Hz, and 20-
kW. Theoretical analysis, along with
experimental results, verifies satisfactory
damping performance of the proposed
hybrid filter.
II. ACTIVE FILTERS FOR HARMONIC
DAMPING
A. System Configuration
Fig. 1 shows a 6.6-kV
simplified power distribution feeder under
no-load conditions, where a shunt pure
active filter for damping out harmonic
propagation is connected by a step-down
transformer at the end of the feeder. On the
other hand, Fig. 2 shows the simplified
feeder having a shunt hybrid active filter
proposed in this paper. The transformer in
the pure filter is replaced by a capacitor in
the hybrid filter. The purpose of the
capacitor is to impose a high impedance to
the fundamental frequency so that the
fundamental voltage appears exclusively
across the capacitor. This means that no
fundamental voltage is applied across the
active filter. Note that the weight of a 6.6-
kVcapacitor ranges from one-tenth to one-
twentieth as light as that of a 6.6-kV/400-
V step-down transformer with the same
kVA rating as the capacitor.

Fig. 3 shows the detailed power circuit
of the hybrid filter, which consists of a
three-phase voltage-fed PWM inverter,
and a series connection L of and C per
phase. Note that the tuned frequency L of
and C is not the fifth-harmonic frequency
but around the seventh-harmonic
frequency. The reason is that the seventh-
tuned LC filter is less bulky than the fifth-
tuned LC filter as long as both filters have
the same inductor as . The dc-bus of the
PWM inverter has only a capacitor without
external supply, and the dc-bus voltage is
controlled by the hybrid filter. The hybrid
filter is controlled so as to draw the
compensating current from the
distribution line.
B. Operating Principle
The hybrid filter with current
control is based on voltage detection. The
compensating current of the hybrid filter
consists of a fundamental component and
harmonic components. The fundamental
component is determined by the
impedance of the LC filter while the
harmonic components are controlled by
the active filter. Three-phase voltages and
currents are detected at the installation bus.
The harmonic voltage in each phase is
extracted from the detected three-phase
voltage, and then the harmonic
Voltage is amplified by a control gain KV .
Thus the harmonic current reference is
given by i*ch.
The actual harmonic compensating current
i*ch is extracted from the detected
compensating current ic . Assuming that ich
is equal to its reference, the hybrid filter
behaves as a damping resistor of 1/ KV
[V/A] for harmonic frequencies. The
optimal value KV of is equal to the inverse
of the characteristic impedance of the
distribution feeder. With this value, the
hybrid filter can damp out harmonic
propagation effectively.
C. Experimental System
Fig. 4 shows the experimental system
under no-load conditions. A three-phase
power distribution feeder simulator rated
at 200 V, 50 Hz, and 20 kW is used for the
laboratory experiments. This feeder
simulator has a harmonic generator
connected at bus V1 . This produces an
amount of harmonic voltage at. Table I
Summarizes the line simulator parameters.
When a lossless line is assumed, the
characteristic impedance of the feeder
simulator, Zo Can be calculated as
A shunt hybrid active filter is installed at
bus V4 . It consists of a 100- F, 2-mH LC
filter and a voltage-source PWM inverter
using power MOSFETs. The LC filter has
a tune frequency of 356 Hz. Table II
summarizes the hybrid filter parameters.
The dc-bus voltage of the PWM inverter
is controlled to be 40 V. Note that the dc-
bus voltage as low as 40 V in the 200-V
system corresponds to a dc-bus voltage as
low as 1.3 kV in a 6.6-kV system. This
means that adopting a diode-clamped
three-level inverter allows us to use 1200-
V IGBTs that are easily available on the
market at low cost.
Referring to [7], the control gain Kv
should be set to the inverse of the
characteristic impedance of the feeder.
That is
Passage of 300 ms, the magnetic contactor
will be turned on, thus bypassing the
resistor. Once the starting procedure is
complete, the PWM signal will be
provided to the gate circuit of each
MOSFET. The dc-bus voltage will begin
to increase, and finally it will reach its
reference value.
III. CONTROL SYSTEM
A. Digital Controller
The active filter is controlled
by a digital controller which consists of an
A/D unit, a DSP unit, a digital PWM unit
and a phase-locked-loop (PLL) unit as
shown in Fig. 6. The DSP unit used for
processing is a 16-bit fixed-point ADSP-
2105 (Analog Devices) unit. The sampling
period of the digital controller is 50 s (20
kS/s). The digital signals in the A/D and
D/A units are limited to 10 V.
To cope with the time and phase delays
inherent to the digital controller, the signal
sampling is synchronized with the 50-Hz
line frequency. This also prevents data
aliasing from the digital controller. The
phase reference is obtained from the
fundamental voltage detected at the
installation bus, and it is processed in the
PLL unit to create both phase signal Wst
and triangular carrier wave Vtri used in the
PWM unit. The sine waveform used for
co- ordinates transformation is created by
using a sine table in the DSP unit.
B. Harmonic Detection
There are several methods to extract the
harmonic components from the detected
three-phase waveforms. Among them, the
so-called p-q theory based on time domain
has been widely applied to the harmonic
extraction circuit of active filters. The
detected three-phase voltage and current
are transformed into the d-q coordinates as
shown in Fig. 7. Two first-order digital
high-pass filters (HPFs) with the same
cutoff frequency as 17 Hz extract the dc
component which corresponds to the
fundamental frequency in the d-q
coordinates. Finally the obtained harmonic
voltage and current are transformed from
the d-q coordinates into the three-phase
harmonic voltage and current.
Note that the first-order digital filters
require one sampling delay (50 s) for
calculation. However, this delay is short
enough to be neglected.
On the other hand, the two digital
filters cause a delay as slow as 60 ms due
to their time response. However, this delay
would produce little bad effect on its
dynamic operating performance because
the hybrid filter is intended for harmonic
voltage damping in power distribution
systems. Moreover, dynamic changes in
harmonic voltages are usually slow
because a dynamic load change is hidden
by the other static loads connected to the
same feeder.
C. DC-Bus Voltage Control
A critical issue in this hybrid
active filter is the dc-bus voltage control.
The dc bus consists of a single capacitor
charged from the power supply. During
operation, the active filter may absorb an
amount of active power into, or release it
from, the dc capacitor. Excessive active
power absorption will increase the dc-bus
voltage, and may damage the active filter.
The strategy used to control the dc-bus
voltage is based on active-power control.
According to the – theory, a dc component
in the – coordinates corresponds to active
power. No direct axis current on the d-q
coordinates flows in the LC filter. Thus,
the active power is controlled by adjusting
the quadrature axis component. The direct
axis is set to zero.
Fig. 8 shows a block diagram for
the dc-bus voltage control. The dc-bus
voltage is detected and compared with a
reference, amplifying the error signal by a
control gain of 10 A/V. Finally, the
obtained control signal on the –
coordinates is transformed into a three-
phase fundamental voltage reference by
using the inverse d-q transformation. The
resultant dc-bus voltage control signal is
added to the voltage reference V*c .
A limiter is included in the dc-
bus control loop. It is designed to ensure a
smooth transient response and to avoid
sudden increments or decrements in the
dc-bus voltage. It is also designed to
prevent the control loop from numerical
saturation in the DSP signals. The limiter
is set to 2.5-V in the digital controller
which corresponds to 25% of the
maximum control signal. For a 40-V dc-
bus voltage, the maximum dc-bus control
signal corresponds to a 10-V peak-to-peak
fundamental voltage for the inverter. A
low-pass filter (LPF) with a cutoff
frequency of 10 Hz eliminates ripples from
the detected dc-bus voltage. Hence, no
harmonic components appear in the dc-bus
voltage control signal.
D. Current Control
Fig. 9 shows a control block diagram of
the hybrid filter. The detected harmonic
voltage Vh is multiplied by a gain Kv to
produce the current reference i*ch . The
current reference is compared with the
detected harmonic compensating current
ich and the difference between i*ch and ich is
multiplied by a control gain Kc . This
results in producing the inverter voltage
reference V*c . The effect of a time delay,
that is, one sampling period T(=50µs)
inherent to the digital controller is
represented as e-st in the control block
diagram.
IV. STABILITY ANALYSIS OF
CURRENT CONTROL LOOP
The stability of the current control
loop is analyzed based on
the experimental setup shown in Fig. 4 and
the parameters contained
in Tables I and II. An arithmetic software
package “Mathematica,” is used for
analysis. Fig. 10 shows a current-control
block diagram of the hybrid filter. The
supply voltage and the dc-bus voltage
control signal V*R can be assumed as
disturbance signals in the current control.
Since the current control emphasizes to
control the harmonic current, these
disturbance signals having the
fundamental frequency can be ignored.
The harmonic current ich is obtained
from the detected hybrid filter current ic ,
as shown in Fig. 7. The transfer function
for the harmonic detection scheme can be
generally expressed as
Where Tc is the time constant of the two
identical high-pass filters which extracts
the dc component in the d–q coordinates,
and
W1 is the angular frequency of the
extracted frequency which in this case
orresponds to the fundamental frequency.
The PWM inverter is assumed to
be an ideal inverter[H(s)=1]. Therefore,
the current-control stability depends on the
control gain Kc . The system becomes
marginally stable when the open-loop
transfer functionWc(s).
Fig. 11 shows the frequency
response of the open-loop transfer function
Wc(s). when K=10 V/A. To observe the
effect of the harmonic detection transfer
function on the current loop stability, the
open-loop transfer function is calculated
with and without the harmonic detection
transfer function. In both cases, the system
is stable with a gain margin of 15 dB. The
harmonic detection scheme does not affect
the performance of the current controller.
A gain margin of 15 dB means
that Kc could be increased to 31.6 V/A
without instability. In this system,
however, Kc is set to 10 V/A in order to
keep a 15-dB stability margin.
Experimental verifications show that the
gain of Kc=10 V/A is high enough to keep
the steady-state error below 5% of the
reference signal while it is low enough to
prevent the DSP signals from numerical
saturation.
V. ANALYSIS OF DAMPING
PERFORMANCE
Fig. 12 shows an equivalent circuit
for analysis. In order to analyze harmonic
damping performance, the supply voltage
is assumed to be a harmonic voltage of
Vsh=V1 . This means that no fundamental
component exists. According to Fig. 9, the
ac output voltage of the active filter, Vc
for harmonic frequencies can be expressed
as
Where Zf is the impedance of the LC
filter. Kv and Kc are the control gains of
the hybrid filter. Note that the positive
direction of Vc is to draw the
compensating current Ic from the
distribution system. From (8), it is clear
that the hybrid filter is characterized as a
voltage-controlled voltage source. Kv ,Kc ,
 frequency in a 50-Hz system. A fifth
harmonic voltage can be found easily in
real distribution systems, as well as third-
and seventh-harmonic voltages.
Theoretically, the fifth-harmonic voltage is
amplified by 21 times, the third- and
seventh-harmonic voltages are amplified
by four times.
When only the LC filter is
connected to the feeder simulator, the
characteristic impedance of the system
changes, and consequently the frequency
response of the harmonic propagation
changes substantially. The presence of the
LC filter makes the system resonant at 350
Hz, where the terminal voltage is
attenuated. The LC filter can be considered
as a passive filter tuned to the seventh-
harmonic frequency. The fifth-harmonic
voltage amplification is considerably
lower than that in the previous

Zf and the delay time e-st are constant

parameters whereas the hybrid filter
voltage varies according to the harmonic
voltage at the installation bus V4 .
Fig. 13 shows the frequency
characteristics of harmonic propagation
and damping, calculated as the ratio of the
voltage at the installation bus,V4 with
respect to the voltage at the source, V1 for
the system shown in Fig. 12. The hybrid
filter voltage is calculated according to (8).
Note that the line simulator is designed to
emulate a real distribution line, including
the line impedance and the shunt
capacitors normally installed for power
factor correction.
According to Fig. 13, when no
filter is connected, the characteristic
impedance of the system, which
corresponds to the characteristic
impedance of the line simulator only, has
three resonance frequencies. The lowest case, having an amplification ratio of
resonance frequency which happens to about 12 times. This value is still unsafe,
have also the highest amplification ratio is because when the fifth-harmonic
at 250 Hz, that is, the fifth-harmonic
frequency becomes high, the terminal
voltage become highly distorted.
When the hybrid filter is
connected, the harmonic propagation is
completely eliminated, so that no
amplification occurs at any frequency.
Thus, the hybrid filter effectively damps
out the harmonic propagation throughout
the feeder.
VI. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The worst case for harmonic
voltage propagation occurs under no-load
conditions when one of resonant
frequencies between line inductance and
shunt capacitors is close to one of
dominant harmonic frequencies. The
presence of resistive loads contributes to
mitigating harmonic voltage propagation.
Hence, dynamic load changes may not
produce any serious
effect on the hybrid filter for harmonic
voltage damping in power distribution
systems. In contrast, conventional active
and hybrid filters for harmonic current
compensation of nonlinear loads would be
strongly affected by dynamic load
changes. Dynamic changes in harmonic
voltages are usually slow in power
distribution systems because dynamic load
changes are hidden by other static loads.
According to the above considerations, the
following experiments were carried out
under steady state and no-load conditions.
If, eventually, a dynamic load
change causes over voltages or Over
currents to the hybrid filter, the PWM
inverter in the hybrid filter leaves the three
upper MOSFETs turned on and the three
lower MOSFETs turned off. This
operation keeps the LC filter
Connected and the inverter shut off. The
PWM pulses will be activated after the
transient ends.
A harmonic voltage generator
injects a fifth-harmonic voltage of 2% at
V1 under no-load conditions, as shown in
Fig. 4. Experimental waveforms of bus
voltages V1-V4 and compensating current
Ic for three different operating conditions
are shown in Fig. 14. Additionally, Table
III summarizes the third-, fifth-, and
seventh-harmonic voltages and the THD
values for the operating conditions
indicated in Fig. 14.
When no filter is connected, the
fifth-harmonic voltage is amplified by
eight times due to harmonic propagation,
distorting severely the voltage waveform.
The eighth-harmonic voltage as well as the
third-harmonic voltage are amplified
slightly. This result shows the effect of
harmonic propagation on the distribution
system.
When only the LC filter is
connected, the harmonic propagation is
reduced considerably, because its
connection changes the characteristic
impedance of the system. However,
harmonic amplification still occurs so that
the voltage waveform is still distorted. The
THD value reaches 6.1%. This does not
comply with harmonic mitigation
standards and guidelines. However, the LC
filter reduces considerably the harmonic
propagation, compared with the previous
case.
When the hybrid filter is
connected, the harmonic propagation is
completely eliminated. None of the
harmonic frequencies are amplified. The
THD value in V4 is kept as low as 2.1%,
because the harmonic components at the
installation bus or bus 4 are reduced. The
fundamental component is the same as that
in case of the LC filter connected because
the active filter presents a high
impedance to the fundamental frequency.
These experimental results conclude that
the hybrid filter effectively damps out
harmonic propagation.
Fig. 15 shows the transient response of
the dc-bus controller, where V*B is the dc-
bus voltage reference Vdc and is the actual
dc-bus voltage. Due to the presence of the
limiter in Fig. 8, the transient response is
smooth enough to reach the steady state in
0.2 s. Fig. 16 shows a steady-state
characteristic of the current control, where
I*ch corresponds to the harmonic current
reference, and Ich to the actual harmonic
current. The steady-state error is small in
amplitude, and moreover no phase delay
exists between the current reference and
the actual detected current. Note that Fig.
16 uses the same experimental data as Fig.
14(c).
It is clear that Ich is the same as Ic
when the fundamental component is
extracted from Ic . The current control
loop as well as the dc-bus control loop
works properly and stably.
VII. CONCLUSION
This paper has discussed
control and performance of a transformer
less shunt hybrid active filter for
installation on 6.6-kV power distribution
systems. The replacement of a 6.6-kV
transformer by a 6.6-kV capacitor
contributes to a significant reduction in
cost, size and weight. Moreover it allows
us to use 1200-V IGBTs that are easily
available on the market and at a low cost.
No phase delay occurs in the
compensating current with respect to the
current reference. The hybrid filter is
stable and robust, being a solution
recommended to deal with harmonic
propagation. The viability and
effectiveness of the proposed shunt hybrid
active filter have been confirmed
theoretically and experimentally,
achieving good performance in damping
out harmonic propagation in power
distribution systems.
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