Improvement of the Voltage Compensation Performance of the Series Active

Power Filter Using a Simple PI-Control Method

Juha Turunen and Heikki Tuusa
Tampere University of Technology
P.O.BOX 692, FI-33101 Tampere, Finland
Tampere, Finland
Tel.: +358 3 3115 3684
Fax: +358 3 3115 2088
E-Mail: juha.turunen@tut.fi, heikki.tuusa@tut.fi
URL: http://www.tut.fi
Keywords
Active Filter, Harmonics, Power Quality
Abstract
The quality of the power is impaired by several reasons. This degradation of the quality of the power is
seen e.g. as supply interruptions, transient overvoltages, voltage dips, flicker, harmonics and voltage
unbalance. The quality of the power may be improved by using power conditioning equipment, which
may be either passive or active. This paper discusses one of the most modern power conditioning devices,
i.e. the unified power quality conditioner (UPQC), which consists of the parallel active power filter
(PAPF) and the series active power filter (SAPF). The UPQC is a power conditioning device able to
compensate all kinds of power quality faults. In this paper the UPQC is used to filter both current and
voltage harmonics and to compensate the voltage dip. The paper deals with a way to improve the voltage
compensation performance of the SAPF at fundamental frequency in steady-state operation. This
improvement is achieved by improving the conventional SAPF control system. The control system of the
SAPF is improved by using closed-loop control instead of open-loop control. Finally, the results of the
experimental tests verifying the functioning of the proposed control system are presented.
Introduction
The quality of the power in the supply network is impaired due to several reasons and therefore this
degradation is seen as various phenomena. The end user of the electricity may suffer e.g. from supply
interruptions, transient overvoltages, voltage dips, flicker, harmonics and voltage unbalance. These
voltage failures and their maximum allowable values in the distribution network are defined by the
European standard EN 50160 [1]. The quality of the power may be improved by several means [2]. One
solution is to use power conditioning equipment, which may be either passive or active.

One of the most modern power conditioning devices is a unified power quality conditioner (UPQC),
which is shown in Fig. 1 [3],[4],[5]. It consists of a parallel active power filter (PAPF) and a series active
power filter (SAPF), which are connected back-to-back using a common dc-link. The SAPF is connected
in series with the supply using a coupling transformer. The PAPF is connected in parallel with the load.
Both active power filters consist of a pulse width modulated voltage source converter (PWM-VSC) and an
LC(L) filter. Since the UPQC is made of two active power filters, it also combines their characteristics and
is thus capable of compensating all kinds of current and voltage failures, such as current and voltage
harmonics, reactive power, flicker, short voltage interruptions, voltage dips etc. depending on the control
systems of the PAPF and the SAPF.
SAPF
SAPF
control
system
+-
udc
us,ABC
PAPF
control
system
ip,ABC
ilo,ABC
SW SW
ib
Rb
ulo
up
Lb
Cp ip
Lp
ua
udc
ilo is
Load
Supply
us
Cdc
Lc
ia
Cc
u2
PAPF
ulo,ABC ulo,ABC

Fig. 1: Unified power quality conditioner.

In this paper, the UPQC is used to filter the harmonics of the supply current and the load voltage and to
compensate the supply voltage dip. The paper presents a way to improve the voltage compensation
performance of the SAPF at fundamental frequency in steady-state operation. Next, the operating
principles of the proposed UPQC and its control system are discussed and after this the experimental test
results verifying the functioning of the presented improvement are presented.
Operating principle of the UPQC
The operating principle of the UPQC is twofold. The purpose of the SAPF is to improve the quality of the
load voltage by injecting the compensation voltage u
2
, whose amplitude is equal and phase opposite to the
failures of the supply voltage u
s
. On the other hand, the purpose of the PAPF is to improve the quality of
the supply current by injecting the compensation current i
b
, whose amplitude is equal and phase opposite
to the failures of the load current i
lo
. Both SAPF and PAPF have their own control systems. The control
systems are based on the space vector calculation in the rotating reference frame, where the angular speed
of the reference frame corresponds to the fundamental frequency, i.e in the synchronous reference frame.
Control system of the PAPF
The control system of the PAPF is presented in Fig. 2. The control system of the PAPF is conventional,
although its performance is improved by using the control delay compensation (CDC) and cross-coupling
compensation (CCC) methods. The purpose and functioning of these methods are well presented in the
reference and therefore they are not explained here [6].

The operating principle of the control system of the PAPF is next briefly presented. The load current i
lo
is
first measured and its space vector in the synchronous reference frame calculated using (1) and (2). In
these equations, the phases are denoted as A, B and C, the space vector components in the
stationary reference frame as and (i
lo
= i
lo,
+ji
lo,
) and the space vector components in the
synchronous reference frame as d and q (i
k
lo
= i
lo,d
+ji
lo,q
, where k refers to the synchronous reference
frame).

C lo,
B lo,
A lo,
lo,
lo,
2 3 2 3 0
2 1 2 1 1
3
2
i
i
i
i
i
(1)
ilo,ABC
dq
ABC
ip,d
+
-
HPF CDC
CDC
ip,q
PID
PID
+
+ +
+
+
Pc
Pc
-
-
+
700
Pe2
up,ref,d ip,ref,d
ip,ref,q
PLL
SW
SVM
udc
ip,ABC
ABC
dq
f
ip,d
ip,q
up,ref,q
f
f
dq
ABC
f
ulo,ABC
ulo,d
ulo,q
ulo,d
ulo,q

Fig. 2: Control system of the PAPF.

lo,
lo,
q lo,
d lo,
cos sin
sin cos
i
i
i
i


(2)
The angle of the synchronous reference frame is generated by a phase-locked loop (PLL). Next, the d-
component of the load current space vector is high-pass filtered (HPF) and the delays of the control
system compensated (CDC). The output signal of the dc-link voltage controller is added to the d-
component of the output current reference in order to maintain the constant dc-link voltage. The achieved
PAPF current reference components i
p,ref,d
and i
p,ref,q
are compared to the space vector components of the
measured PAPF output current i
p,d
and i
p,q
and the error signals are fed into the PID-controllers. Next, the
cross-coupling terms P
c
i
p,ref,q
and -P
c
i
p,ref,d
are summed to the outputs of the PID-controllers. Finally, the
achieved space vector components are subtracted from the load voltage space vector components u
lo,d
and
u
lo,q
. The resulting PAPF output voltage reference vector u
k
p,ref
is fed to the space vector modulator (SVM).

The dc-link controller, which is included in the control system of the PAPF, is based on the proportional
error squared (Pe
2
) controller. The error between the measured dc-link voltage and its reference value is
fed into the Pe
2
-controller, whose output signal is added to the d-component of the PAPF output current
reference.
Control system of the SAPF
The control system of the SAPF is next discussed. The operation of the conventional SAPF control system
is based on open-loop control. The conventional control system is shown in Fig. 3. This is also the basis of
the proposed control system and it can be seen as the lowest calculation branch in Fig. 4, which presents
the proposed control system.

CDC
ABC
dq
us,ABC
u lo,ref
f
ua,ref
PLL
SW
SVM
k
TR
us,ref
k
k

Fig. 3: Conventional control system of the SAPF.
CDC
ABC
dq
us,ABC
u lo,ref
f
ua,ref
PLL
SW
SVM
k
ulo,ABC
dq
ABC
LPF
+
-
-
+
LPF
PI
u2,diff
zero sig.
Logic
k
+
+
TR
us,ref
k
u2,PI
k
k

Fig. 4: Proposed control system of the SAPF.

The operating principle of the conventional control system is the following: the supply voltage u
s
is first
measured and its space vector calculated using (1) and (2) (where i
lo
is replaced by u
s
). The angle of the
synchronous reference frame is generated by a phase-locked loop (PLL). The space vector of the supply
voltage u
s
is first compared to its reference value u
k
lo,ref
= 325+j0. The result of this is the SAPF output
voltage reference u
k
s,ref.
After the control delay compensation (CDC) the voltage reference vector is
multiplied by the transformation ratio of the coupling transformer (TR) and the resulting vector u
k
a,ref
is
fed into the space vector modulator (SVM).

In the case of the conventional control system, the control method is basically an open-loop control, where
the P-controller is used with gain P=1. However, the voltage compensation performance of the SAPF is
poor at the fundamental frequency if the open-loop control system is used, because in practice it always
produces a steady-state error [7]. This can be avoided by using the closed-loop control method with the
PI-controller. However, the PI-controller works properly only when its reference signal is a dc-
component. In the control system of the SAPF the fundamental frequency component can be seen as a dc-
component because of the space vector calculation in the synchronous reference frame. Therefore, the
steady-state error of the load voltage u
lo
at the fundamental frequency can be reduced to zero by using the
closed-loop control system with the PI-controller.

Now the operating principle of the proposed control system of the SAPF shown in Fig. 4 is discussed.
Besides the aforementioned open-loop calculation branch, the control system also includes another
calculation branch, which provides a feedback path in the control system. In this closed-loop calculation
branch the PI-controller is used.

The operating principle of this calculation branch is the following: first, the space vector of the
compensation voltage u
2
is found by calculating the difference of the space vectors of the load and supply
voltages u
lo
and u
s
. This vector is low-pass filtered (LPF) to obtain the fundamental component of the load
voltage, which is seen as a dc-component in the control system. The reference vector, which is also a dc-
component in the given reference frame is achieved by low-pass filtering the voltage reference vector
u
k
s,ref
. After this, the difference of these vectors u
k
2,diff
is fed into the PI-controller and its output added to
the voltage reference vector u
k
s,ref
. The PI-controller is used only in steady-state. If the dynamic change in
the supply voltage is observed by the control block Logic, it disables the PI-controller (zero sig.). The
zero signal resets the output signal u
k
2,PI
and also the internal variables of the PI-controller and keeps
them at zero for 10 ms.

The idea behind this feedback-loop is that the actual coupling transformer voltage u
2
at the fundamental
frequency is compared to its reference value and the difference between these signals is fed into the PI-
controller. Now the purpose of the PI-controller is to force the error between these signals to zero in
steady-state operation, which means that the fundamental frequency component of the compensation
voltage u
2
follows exactly its reference value. It must be noted that this concerns only the fundamental
frequency component, since it can be seen as a dc-component in this reference frame and may therefore be
controlled using the PI-controller. In the case where the system is in dynamic change it is advantageous to
disable the PI-controller, since its integrating part makes the response of the control system slower. The
PI-control may be enabled again after the dynamic change to ensure a good steady-state performance.
Because of the dynamic changes the proposed control system includes the Logic block whose operation
was presented above.
Experimental tests
In this section the experimental tests verifying the functioning of the proposed control system of the SAPF
are presented. First, the prototype of the UPQC as well as the test setup and the execution of the tests are
presented. After this, the test results of these tests are shown and analysed.
UPQC prototype and the test set-up
The operation of the proposed control system was tested experimentally using the UPQC prototype. The
main circuit of the test setup was similar to that presented in Fig. 1. In the prototype, Motorola
MPC563CZP66 microcontrollers were used for calculation and Semikron SKM40GD123D IGBT
modules were used as switching devices with the PAPF and the SAPF. The supply voltage was 230/400
V. The most important main circuit parameters are presented in Table I.

The experimental tests were performed in two cases. In the first case the steady-state harmonics filtering
performance of the UPQC was tested using the conventional control system and the proposed control
system with the SAPF. The harmonics were produced by two sources: the supply and the load. The supply
voltage, which was produced by ELGAR SW 5250A power supply, was distorted. The supply voltage
harmonics are presented in Table II a). This table also shows the maximum permissible values of the
supply voltage harmonics according to EN 50160 [1]. The load was a 2.3 kVA three-phase diode rectifier
with the RL-load on its dc-side. The load current harmonics are presented in Table II b).

In the second case it was tested how well the UPQC compensates a voltage dip in cases where the
conventional or proposed control system is used with the SAPF. In this test the same load was used as in
the previous test. However, in this test the three-phase voltage dip, whose duration was 200 ms, was
produced to the supply voltage by the power supply device. During this voltage dip the supply voltage was
decreased by 23 %. In this test, sinusoidal supply voltage was used, i.e. it did not contain any harmonics as
was the case in the steady-state test.

Table I: Main circuit parameters.
Component Value
DC-link capacitance C
dc
1.65 mF
DC-link voltage 700 V
Modulation frequency (PAPF+SAPF) 10 kHz
PAPF LC-filter capacitance C
p
5.0 F
PAPF LC-filter inductance L
b
1.2 mH
PAPF LC-filter inductance L
p
5.2 mH
SAPF LC-filter capacitance C
c
1.0 F
SAPF LC-filter inductance L
c
5.3 mH
Transformer transformation ratio N
1
/N
2
2:1

Table II: a) Phase-A supply voltage harmonics. b) Phase-A load current harmonics.

Test results
The test results of the steady-state performance test are presented in Figs. 5 and 6 and in Tables III a) and
III b). In the test results it can be seen that there is no notable difference in the harmonic filtering
performance of the UPQC between the cases where the conventional or proposed control system of the
SAPF is used. This is natural, since the aim of the proposed control system compared to the conventional
one is to improve the compensation performance only at fundamental frequency.

However, in Table III b) it can be seen that the fundamental component of the load voltage is closer to its
reference value 230 V in the case where the proposed control system is used. Actually, in the case where
the conventional control system is used the fundamental frequency component of the load voltage u
lo
is
smaller than that of the supply voltage u
s
. This is because the supply current i
s
generates a voltage drop in
the coupling transformer and since there is no feedback from the load voltage u
lo
, this voltage drop cannot
be compensated.

a) b) c) d)
Fig. 5: Phase-A quantities using the conventional control system. a) Supply voltage u
s,A
. b) Load voltage
u
lo,A
. c) Load current i
lo,A
. d) Supply current i
s,A
.

a) b) c) d)

Fig. 6: Phase-A quantities using the proposed control system. a) Supply voltage u
s,A
. b) Load voltage u
lo,A
.
c) Load current i
lo,A
. d) Supply current i
s,A
.
b)
Harmonic no. I
lo,A
(A)
1 3.37
5 0.76
7 0.39
11 0.31
13 0.18
17 0.18
19 0.11
23 0.10
25 0.08
THD
2.5kHz
(%) 28.6

a)
Harmonic
no.
Test values EN 50160
n
U
s,A,n
/U
s,A,1

(%)
U
s,A,n
/U
s,A,1
(%)
5 12.0 6.0
7 10.0 5.0
11 3.5 3.5
13 3.0 3.0
17 0 2.0
19 0 1.5
23 0 1.5
25 0 1.5
Table III: a) Harmonic content of the phase-A load current i
lo,A
and the supply current i
s,A
.
b) Harmonic content of the phase-a supply voltage u
s,A
and the load voltage u
lo,A
.

On the other hand, in the case where the proposed control system is used, it can be seen that the
fundamental frequency component of the load voltage is very close to 230 V because of the closed-loop
control.

Next, the voltage compensation performance of the UPQC was tested in the case of a voltage dip by using
the conventional and proposed control systems with the SAPF. The results of this test are presented in
Figs. 7 and 8. As is presented in Figs 7 a) and 7 b), at the time instant 80 ms there is a voltage dip of 23 %
in the supply voltage u
s
. The duration of the voltage dip is 200 ms.


a) b)
Fig. 7: RMS-values of the Phase-A supply voltage u
s,A
(--) and the load voltage u
lo,A
(-). a) Conventional
control system is used with the SAPF. b) Proposed control system is used with the SAPF.


a) b)
Fig. 8: Phase-A quantities using the proposed control system. a) Load current i
lo,A
. b) Supply current i
s,A
.

b)
Control
system

Conven-
tional
Propo-
sed
Harmonic
no.
U
s,A
(V)
U
lo,A

(V)
U
lo,A

(V)
1 223.2 210.4 228.1
5 27.5 4.5 3.9
7 23.7 6.9 7.8
11 8.0 1.0 0.9
13 6.9 2.5 4.6
17 0.2 1.6 2.8
19 0.1 0.8 1.8
23 0.1 1.0 1.4
25 0.1 0.8 0.9
THD
2.5kHz
16.9 4.5 5.0
THD
20kHz
17.0 4.7 5.2
a)
Control
system

Conven-
tional
Propo-
sed
Harmonic
no.
I
lo,A
(A) I
s,A
(A) I
s,A
(A)
1 3.37 3.77 4.42
5 0.76 0.15 0.07
7 0.39 0.14 0.21
11 0.31 0.02 0.03
13 0.18 0.08 0.18
17 0.18 0.08 0.13
19 0.11 0.04 0.09
23 0.10 0.02 0.04
25 0.08 0.01 0.02
THD
2.5kHz
28.6 7.1 8.2
THD
20kHz
28.6 7.2 8.3
The results shown in Fig. 7 a) are achieved using the conventional control system. In this case no change
in the load voltage u
lo
can be seen despite the supply voltage dip because of the UPQC. However, as can
be seen, the steady state performance at the fundamental frequency is poor. The load voltage u
lo
is
continuously approximately 9 % lower than its reference value 230 V.

A small ripple component, which can be seen in the load voltage u
lo,A
presented in Figs. 7 a) and b) is a
result of harmonics in the load voltage. Although there are no harmonics in the supply voltage, the
harmonics are generated in the load voltage because of the coupling transformer for two reasons. First,
because of its impedance, there is a voltage drop across the coupling transformer at the harmonic
frequencies due to the load current harmonics. Second, if the transformer is saturated, it generates
harmonics whose amplitude depends on the degree of its saturation. Since the control system of the SAPF
is based on open-loop control at the harmonic frequencies, i.e. the harmonics are compensated on the basis
of the supply voltage measurement, these load voltage harmonics cannot be filtered.

Fig. 7 b) presents a test case where the proposed control system is used with the SAPF. In this case it can
be seen that at the beginning and end of the supply voltage dip the load voltage u
lo
decreases
approximately 9% for 10 ms. This is because the Logic-block shown in Fig. 4 disables the PI -control
for 10 ms because of a dynamic change. After 10 ms the PI-control is again enabled, and the steady-state
value of the load voltage u
lo
improves close to its reference value 230 V.

Fig. 8 b) presents the supply current i
s
during the voltage dip in the case where the proposed control
system is used with the SAPF. It can be seen that its value is increased during the dip. This is because the
PAPF draws more current during the voltage dip to maintain the dc-link voltage. The behavior of the
supply current is similar in the case where the conventional control system is used with the SAPF.
Conclusion
Deterioration of the power quality in the supply network is seen as various phenomena, such as supply
interruptions, transient overvoltages, voltage dips, flicker, harmonics and voltage unbalance. The quality
of the power may be improved by using power conditioning equipment, which can be either passive or
active.

In this paper, a unified power quality conditioner (UPQC), which is one of the most modern power
conditioning devices, was discussed. The UPQC is a multifunctional power conditioning device, which
can be used to compensate all kinds of power quality faults depending on the control system used with it.
In this paper the UPQC was used to filter both current and voltage harmonics and to compensate the
voltage dip.

The UPQC consists of two active power filters, which are the parallel active power filter (PAPF) and the
series active power filter (SAPF). The paper presented a way to improve the voltage compensation
performance of the SAPF at fundamental frequency in steady-state operation. This improvement was
achieved by using the improved control system with the SAPF. This control system was based on closed-
loop control and therefore enabled the improvement of the voltage compensation performance at the
fundamental frequency.

At the beginning of the paper, the UPQC was presented and the operation principles of the PAPF and
SAPF discussed. Next, the control systems of the PAPF and SAPF were presented. The proposed control
system of the SAPF and its improvements compared to the conventional control system were presented.
The improvement of the proposed control system was to use the closed-loop control method to enhance
the steady-state compensation performance at fundamental frequency.

Finally, experimental tests verifying the functioning of the proposed control system were presented. Two
test cases were presented. In the first the steady-state harmonic filtering performance of the UPQC was
tested. In the second the performance of the UPQC was tested in a case of voltage dip. Based on these two
experiments it was concluded that the steady-state compensation performance of the SAPF could be
improved by using the proposed control system.
References
[1] Voltage Characteristics of Electricity Supplied by Public Distribution Systems. European Standard EN 50160.
February 2000.
[2] Kennedy, B. W. Power Quality Primer. McGraw-Hill, 361 p. 2000.
[3] Cao, R., Zhao, J., Shi, W., Jiang, P., Tang, G. Series Power Quality Compensator for Voltage Sags, Swells,
Harmonics and Unbalance. Proceedings of the Conference on Transmission and Distribution, Vol. 1, pp. 543-
547. November 2001.
[4] Chen, Y., Zha, X., Liu, H., Sun, J., Tang. H. Unified Power Quality Conditioner (UPQC): the Theory, Modeling
and Application. Proceedings of the International Conference on Power System Technology, Vol. 3, pp. 1329-
1333. December 2000.
[5] Fujita, H., Akagi, H. The Unified Power Quality Conditioner: The Integration of Series Active Filters and Shunt
Active filters. IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, Vol. 13, pp. 315-322. March 1996.
[6] Turunen, J., Salo, M., Tuusa, H. Improvement of the Compensation Performance of UPQC. Proceedings of the
Nordic Workshop on Power and Industrial Electronics, June 2006.
[7] Dorf, R. H., Bishop, R. C., Modern Control Systems. Addison Wesley Longman, 855 p. 1998.