Comparative Analysis of Filters to Mitigate Harmonics for Power Quality Enhancement

Due to the advancement in power electronic equipments and increase in the usage of non-linear loads in power distribution system, the undesirable harmonics are introduced that degrade the quality of power. Presence of harmonics are always detrimental to power system that results in irreversible failure of electrical components, sometimes apart from frequently known heating issues in it. There are several approaches that can be considered to compensate for harmonics in power system with varying degree of effectiveness and approaches. The objective of this paper is to use passive filter and Fuzzy logic controller based shunt active filter for harmonic mitigation and study their performance. The performance of proposed filters is evaluated through computer simulation using Matlab R2010b/Simulink platform. Evaluating the simulation results, the Fuzzy logic controller based shunt active power filter is more effective in reducing total harmonic distortion and improving the power factor of the source signal when compared to passive filter.