OPTIMAL DESIGN OF THIRD-ORDER HARMONIC PASSIVE FILTERS FOR ELECTRIC POWER DISTRIBUTION SYSTEMS OPERATING UNDER NON-SINUSOIDAL CONDITIONS

Abstract

Power quality issues, especially power system harmonic distortion, are becoming potentially serious because of the widespread use of non-linear loads, as well as renewables and power electronic-based equipment. Currently, power system harmonics management is not an additional option in power-electronic era. Even though 3rd order harmonic filters were in operation many years ago, their design remains not straightforward. Hence, they could be inspected under different design objectives. In this work, a proposed optimal design of anti-resonance 3rd order harmonic filters is presented, given that background voltage harmonic distortion of the utility and the injected current harmonic distortion of the industrial consumers (hybrid non-linear and linear loads) present. The optimal solution is expressed based on the minimization of two objective functions: weighted driving point impedance and total cost with many non-linear constraints of the filter and the system while considering series and parallel harmonic resonance damping metrics to quantify the filters’ capability of resonance damping. Investigations of the system performance will be evaluated with variable frequency drives (6-pulse and 12-pulse) when the filter is connected to the load side. Particle swarm optimization is chosen to find the optimal filter design for its success and fast convergence in solving constraine