Power Quality Issues and Solutions - Review

Electrical power quality has been an important and growing problem because of the proliferation of nonlinear loads such as power electronic converters in typical power distribution systems in recent years. Particularly, voltage harmonics and power distribution equipment problems result from current harmonics produced by nonlinear loads. The Electronic equipment like, computers, battery chargers, electronic ballasts, variable frequency drives, and switch mode power supplies, generate perilous harmonics and cause enormous economic loss every year. Problems caused by power quality have great adverse economic impact on the utilities and customers. Due to that both power suppliers and power consumers are concerned about the power quality problems and compensation techniques. Power quality has become more and more serious with each passing day. As a result active power filter gains much more attention due to excellent harmonic and reactive power compensation in two-wire (single phase), three-wire (three-phase without neutral), and four-wire (three-phase with neutral) ac power networks with nonlinear loads. However, this is still a technology under development, and many new contributions and new control topologies have been reported in the last few years. It is aimed at providing a broad perspective on the status of APF technology to the researchers and application engineers dealing with power quality issues.