Adaptive Compensation of Reactive Power With Shunt Active Power Filters

This paper describes an adaptive method for compensating the reactive power with an active power filter (APF), which is initially rated for mitigation of only the harmonic currents given by a nonlinear industrial load. It is proven that, if the harmonic currents do not load the APF at the rated power, the available power can be used to provide a part of the required reactive power. Different indicators for designing such application are given, and it is proven that the proposed adaptive algorithm represents an added value to the APF. The algorithm is practically validated on a laboratory setup with a 7-kVA APF.