Control Strategy and Site Selection of a Shunt Active Filter for Damping of Harmonic Propagation in Power Distribution Systems

This paper deals with a shunt active filter which will be installed by an electric utility, putting much emphasis on the control strategy and the best point of installation of the shunt active filter on a feeder in a power distribution system. The objective of the shunt active filter is to damp harmonic propagation, which results from harmonic resonance between many capacitors for power factor improvement and line inductors in the feeder, rather than to minimize voltage distortion throughout the feeder. Harmonic mitigation is a welcome by-product of the shunt active filter, which comes from damping of harmonic propagation. This paper concludes that the shunt active filter based on detection of voltage at the point of installation is superior in stability to others, and that the best site selection is not the beginning terminal but the end terminal of the primary line in the feeder. Computer simulation is performed to verify the validity and effectiveness of the shunt active filter by means of an analog circuit simulator, which is characterized by installing it on a feeder of a radial distribution system in a residential area.