Active power filter technology and its development

Abstract

With the wide application of power electronic switches in power system, more harmonic and reactive current are poured into the power, which caused power pollution. Conventionally passive filters were used to reduce harmonics and reactive power to improve the power factor of the ac loads. However, passive filters have the demerits of fixed compensation, large size and resonance. Thus, the experts and power system engineers now focus on the active power filter. The background, development, classifications and the future prospects of active power filters are presented in this paper. With the developments of technique, active power filters will achieve higher performances and wider applications.