Design and simulation of a solar supplied multifunctional active power filter and a comparative study on the current-detection algorithms

Parallel to growing grid-integrated applications, the power converters have been an important research field for the power conversion and power quality. The converters can be used in different power levels ranging from large adjustable speed drives to low power household applications and office media. The generated current harmonics in the grids due to the nonlinear loads are considered to be one of the encountered problems to overcome. In the present paper, we propose a multifunctional active power filter (APF) fed by a PV system in order to remove these harmonics problems. In addition, a review of the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) techniques is presented. The design and the analyses were carried out in MATLAB/Simulink software. The simulation system has a nonlinear load which causes a harmonic disturbance and increases the total harmonic distortion (THD) in the grid line. The proposed APF removes the most leading harmonics by using two different current detection algorithms and the obtained results are compared in terms of current THD level and the power factor. Besides, the proposed APF system exports PV generated power to the grid efficiently. The PV array was accompanied by a boost converter and P&O maximum power point tracking algorithm to determine the active power level according to the PV system operation conditions. The supercapacitor is used to remove the power fluctuations because of the varying climatic conditions. Thus, the proposed multifunctional APF compensates the reactive power, filters the harmonic components of the nonlinear load, and exports the PV power to the grid. As a consequence, it is confirmed that the proposed solar supplied APF improves the grid power quality and the THD values, which have been found as 1.45% and 1.42% for fundamental positive sequence and p-q algorithms, respectively.