Experimental mitigation techniques to reduce the Total Harmonic Distortion of low voltage non-linear power sources

摘要

Non-linear power sources have become very popular nowadays, being widely present in almost all electronic devices connected to the power supply grid. Distorted nature of these types of loads has strongly influenced the electrical power quality by generating high levels of harmonics in the current and voltage waveforms of the power systems. As these levels are quantified by the Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) factor, in this paper an experimental analysis by testing a series of mitigation techniques, as AC choke filters, passive or active filters, is carried out. The results prove the effectiveness of every tested method and grant the association of active filters and tuned passive filters, known also as hybrid filters, as being the best filtering solution to reduce the THD level in low voltage applications.