IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 59, NO.
3, MARCH 2012
Generalized Design of High Performance Shunt
Active Power Filter With Output LCL Filter
Yi Tang, Student Member, IEEE, Poh Chiang Loh, Member, IEEE, Peng Wang, Member, IEEE, Fook Hoong Choo,
Feng Gao, Member, IEEE, and Frede Blaabjerg, Fellow, IEEE
AbstractThis paper concentrates on the design, control, and
implementation of an LCL-filter-based shunt active power filter
(SAPF), which can effectively compensate for harmonic currents
produced by nonlinear loads in a three-phase three-wire power
system. With an LCL filter added at its output, the proposed
SAPF offers superior switching harmonic suppression using much
reduced passive filtering elements. Its output currents thus have
high slew rate for tracking the targeted reference closely. Smaller
inductance of the LCL filter also means smaller harmonic voltage
drop across the passive output filter, which in turn minimizes
the possibility of overmodulation, particularly for cases where
high modulation index is desired. These advantages, together
with overall system stability, are guaranteed only through proper
consideration of critical design and control issues, like the selec-
tion of LCL parameters, interactions between resonance damping
and harmonic compensation, bandwidth design of the closed-loop
system, and active damping implementation with fewer current
sensors. These described design concerns, together with their
generalized design procedure, are applied to an analytical exam-
ple, and eventually verified by both simulation and experimental
results.
Index TermsActive power filter, current control, LCL filter,
resonance damping.
I. I NTRODUCTION
T HE higher order LCL filter has commonly been used
in place of the conventional L-filter to give a better
smoothing of output currents from a voltage source converter
[1], [2]. Its applications to grid-connected inverters and pulse-
width modulated active rectifiers have recently attracted a lot
of research attentions [1][8], mainly due to its ability to
minimize the amount of current distortion injected into the
utility grid. Power quality of the grid is hence enhanced, which
is particularly important for small-scale distributed generation
systems, where the ac bus is not strong [6]. Despite having these
advantages, there are some challenges faced by the LCL filter
in practical implementations, whose common concern is the
Manuscript received March 29, 2011; revised July 12, 2011; accepted
August 16, 2011. Date of publication September 6, 2011; date of current version
October 25, 2011.
Y. Tang, P. C. Loh, P. Wang, and F. H. Choo are with the School of Electrical
and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
639798 (e-mail: tang0175@ntu.edu.sg; pcloh@ieee.org; epwang@ntu.edu.sg;
efhchoo@ntu.edu.sg).
F. Gao is with the School of Electrical Engineering, Shandong University,
Jinan 250061, China (e-mail: fgao@sdu.edu.cn).
F. Blaabjerg is with the Institute of Energy Technology, Aalborg University,
9220 Aalborg East, Denmark (e-mail: fbl@iet.aau.dk).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIE.2011.2167117
0278-0046/$26.00 2011 IEEE
1443
possibility of exciting serious resonance at certain frequency.
The overall system might therefore be unstable, but fortunately
can be resolved by applying existing damping techniques, like
adding a real resistor in series with the filter capacitor [1],
actively feeding back some measured or estimated electrical
variables for control purposes [7][12], and splitting the filter
capacitor to reduce the system order [13], [14]. These tech-
niques have no doubt contributed prominently to the wide-
spread adoption of LCL filter by the industry [1].
Although extensive, most investigations on LCL filter now
have focused on topics like fundamental current tracking and
resonance damping for mostly simple grid-tied dc-ac inverters
and ac-dc rectifiers. For these applications, the LCL resonance
frequency is usually tuned to be at least ten times of the
fundamental line frequency [1]. It is therefore not difficult to
simultaneously achieve the desired control objectives at fun-
damental frequency using existing control techniques. In [15],
a slightly more complicated design scenario was considered
for a three-phase inverter driven by direct power control and
connected to an ac grid with fifth harmonic voltages. A similar
study was conducted in [16], where the low-order grid harmonic
problem was solved by feeding forward the grid voltages.
The highest harmonic orders considered in these studies were,
however, quite small and hence far away from the resonance
frequencies of their respectively designed LCL filters. Their
effectiveness in compensating harmonics was, therefore, quite
expected since interactions with system damping and stability
were not significant.
Other more challenging studies on LCL filter can certainly be
found in the literature, but only a few has discussed about merits
and design challenges faced when applied to shunt active power
filter (SAPF) [17], [18]. In [19], a repetitive control scheme
coupled to a one-beat-delay current controller was proposed for
LCL-filter-based SAPF. Although the system exhibited good
performance under both dynamic and steady-state conditions,
the design of LCL filter and resonance damping control was
not specifically addressed. A design procedure for determining
the parameters of the LCL filter was subsequently discussed in
[20] for SAPF controlled by a hysteresis scheme with variable
switching frequency. The provided methodology, however, led
to very different grid- and converter-side inductors, which were
therefore not yet optimized, based on concepts discussed in
[21], [22]. Moreover, only passive damping technique was
considered in [20], meaning real resistors were added in series
with the filter capacitors, leading to unnecessary power losses.
These earlier studies on SAPF also included only simulation
results with their practicalities left unverified.
1444
Fig. 1. Circuit diagram of proposed SAPF with output LCL filter.
A comparative study can also be found in [23], where the
LCL-filter-based and L-filter-based SAPFs were compared ex-
perimentally. Conceptual explanation for that study was, how-
ever, lacking, hence making it hard to appreciate improvement
contributed by the LCL filter. These shortfalls, together with
a number of other issues identified in the literature, lead to
the general belief that LCL filter for the more complex SAPF
has not been fully understood. Its real advantages over the
L-filter-based SAPF are, therefore, not yet well-defined and
are investigated here by addressing a few control objectives
related to the LCL-filter-based SAPF. As a start, a frequency
domain model of LCL filters, which takes into account the
phase lag introduced by the LCL resonance, is established.
Analysis of this model reveals that the maximum achievable
system bandwidth is closely linked to the resonance frequency
of the LCL filter. A general design guideline is then proposed to
ensure proper placement of the resonance frequency within an
appropriate chosen range, so as to simultaneously achieve accu-
rate harmonic compensation and optimum resonance damping
without any tradeoff noted between them.
Active damping, being more efficient, is also explicitly
considered here for embedding within the control loop, so
as to alter the plant transfer function to get a more well-
damped system. A design example then follows, whose
objective is to compensate for harmonic currents up to the
25th order in a 50-Hz three-phase three-wire power system.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 59, NO. 3, MARCH 2012
The designed system is next compared with its L-filter-based
correspondence, designed to have similar ripple filtering.
Through the comparison, an attractive advantage of the LCL-
filter-based SAPF is identified for cases where high modulation
index (e.g., 0.9) is demanded, which so far has not been pre-
viously discussed. Simulation and experimental results for
verifying this advantage, together with other performance
improvements, are subsequently provided, before concluding
on the effectiveness of the proposed SAPF design and control
methodology.
II. M ODEL OF LCL F ILTER
Fig. 1 shows the typical circuit diagram of a SAPF imple-
mented as a three-phase three-wire system. Between the SAPF
and utility grid is an LCL filter added for current smoothing,
whose model is formulated by first making a few assumptions
for simplifying the analysis. Foremost would be to assume that
the three-phase voltages at the point of common coupling are
sinusoidal and balanced. That then means the grid can rea-
sonably be treated as a short-circuit when performing stability
analysis in the high frequency range. In addition, all equivalent
series resistances (ESRs) of passive components, including the
converter-side inductor Lf f , grid-side inductor Lgf , and filter
capacitor Cf , are neglected, since they provide some degrees
of resonance damping, and would thus raise the overall system
stability. Ignoring ESRs therefore represents the worst case
TANG et al.: GENERALIZED DESIGN OF HIGH PERFORMANCE SHUNT ACTIVE POWER FILTER WITH OUTPUT LCL FILTER 1445

Fig. 3. Bode plot of (6) obtained using the parameters listed in Table I.

Fig. 2. Plant models of (a) undamped and (b) actively damped SAPFs. TABLE I
S YSTEM PARAMETERS U SED FOR S IMULATION AND E XPERIMENT
scenario in terms of damping, even though it represents the best
case in terms of loss reduction. Applying these assumptions
then leads to the model shown in Fig. 2(a) for representing
the power stage of the SAPF, whose converter bridge has been
represented by a gain of Vdc /2, as per previous practice.
Fig. 2(a) can further be written as a set of transfer functions
in the frequency domain, as demonstrated by
Igf (s) Vdc /2
Gp (s) = = (1)
Vm (s) Lf f Lgf Cf s3 + (Lf f + Lgf )s
Icf (s)
= Lgf Cf s2 (2)
Igf (s)

where Vm is the normalized modulating signal, Vdc is the

dc-link voltage, Igf and Icf are the currents injected into the
grid and absorbed by the filter capacitor, respectively. Applying
unity feedback control to (1) then results in a characteristic
polynomial without the s2 term. The overall closed-loop
system is thus unstable or marginally stable according to the
Rouths stability criterion and would need additional damping
to stabilize it.
Passive damping is certainly a simple and straightforward
method for consideration but would introduce high losses,
particularly for SAPF, where high switching harmonic current With a finite s2 term now introduced to its denominator,
will flow through the added damping resistor per phase. Passive closed-loop stability of (4) can easily be tuned by varying the
damping is therefore not considered further. Instead, active feedback gain Kd appropriately. Damping factor , represent-
damping is focused, which when applied, leads to the actively ing the extent of resonance damping, can also be tuned as
damped system shown in Fig. 2(b). In that figure, the filter 
capacitor current is sensed and added to the modulating signal Vdc Kd Lf f + Lgf
2res = = 2 (5)
through a damping gain Kd . The new transfer function is then 2Lf f Lf f Lgf Cf
written as
Igf (s) Vdc /2 where res represents the LCL resonance frequency, deter-
= . (3) mined solely by the passive component values. Substituting (5)
Vm (s) Icf (s)Kd Lf f Lgf Cf s3 + (Lf f + Lgf )s
into (4) then results in the following simplified damped system
Upon substituting (2) for Icf (s), the new plant model Gpd (s) model:
is derived as Vdc 1
Gpd (s) = . (6)
Gpd (s) 2Lf f Lgf Cf s (s2 + 2res s + res
2 )

Igf (s) Bode diagrams of (6) under various damping factors can
=
Vm (s) now be plotted as in Fig. 3, using parameters listed in
Vdc /2 Table I. Also drawn are the first-order curves associated with
= . (4)
Lf f Lgf Cf s3 +(Vdc /2)Kd Lgf Cf s2 +(Lf f +Lgf )s a simple L-filter, whose inductance is set to Lt = Lf f + Lgf .
1446 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 59, NO. 3, MARCH 2012

Comparing the curves then leads to the general observation

that the magnitude response of the LCL filter approaches that
of the L-filter in the low frequency range (below resonance
frequency), regardless of the damping factor chosen. Their
phase responses can, however, be quite different, which may
significantly impact the system stability. Moreover, it is sensed
that the control bandwidth cannot exceed or even be close to
the resonance frequency, since it will create a 180 phase lag,
whose resulting influence is an insufficient phase margin for
closed-loop control. Non-negligible delays caused by sampling
and modulation would also constrain the system crossover
frequency c , limiting it to be less than 0.3 times the resonance
frequency res , based on the region suggested in Fig. 3.
Defining as c /res 0.3 then leads to a phase lag of
LCL radians for the LCL filter at c , calculated as
Fig. 4. Root locus of (6) showing trajectories of closed-loop poles.
LCL ={Gpd (jc )}
  gain is, therefore, absent, implying that optimal damping of the
Vdc 1
= LCL filter cannot be guaranteed. This is clearly confirmed by
2Lf f Lgf Cf (jc )3 +2res (jc )2 +res
2 j
c
 the dynamic results presented in [25], where obvious current
Vdc oscillations and overshoots can be seen. Proper sizing of the
=
2Lf f Lgf Cf damping gain is, therefore, important and is precisely deter-
 mined here by using the plant model in (4) and (5) to arrive at
1 

(jres )3 +2res (jres )2 +res
2 j
res 4 Lf f (Lf f + Lgf )
  Kd = (8)
Vdc 1 Vdc Lgf Cf
=
2Lf f Lgf Cf 22 res3 +(3 )j 3
res
where Kd is shown to be proportional to the damping factor
12 , whose value can freely be tuned to arrive at the desired
=arctan . (7)
2 damping response.
Referring next to (6), the general observation noted is that the
When the damping factor of LCL resonance is chosen to damped LCL network has a pair of conjugate complex poles in
be 0.707 (a very typical value used for second-order system), the left half plane and another pole at the origin. The locations
LCL is calculated as 0.64 or 115 , which is not a very severe of these poles, and hence the system response and performance,
degradation, as compared to the value of 0.5 or 90 of an can be varied by applying unity feedback, and then tuning the
L-filter. Parameter c or 0.3res should, moreover, be chosen proportional gain Kpc of the current controller. Theoretically, a
much higher than the highest harmonic current compensated large proportional gain would force the real closed-loop pole to
by the SAPF, so as to completely eliminate its interaction move further away from the imaginary axis, hence attenuating
with the LCL resonance. The desired switching frequency can its impact, and causing the two conjugate poles to dominate.
eventually be set, which according to [24], should be set at The conjugate poles would also move closer toward the right
least two times of res , so as to provide sufficient harmonic half plane, causing the system to gradually become unstable.
attenuation around the switching frequency. The described pole trajectories are shown by the root locus
of (6) plotted in Fig. 4, which also shows the closeness of
III. C ONTROL OF SAPF the poles, even though they are gradually moving apart, as
Upon figuring out the relationships among system band- Kpc increases. The impact of the real pole, therefore, cannot
width, LCL resonance frequency, and converter switching be neglected, but should be understood by comparing the step
frequency, development of control algorithms for the LCL- response of the closed-loop system with the following second-
filter-based SAPF can proceed. The resulting control block order system Gs (s) at different damping factors:
diagram is shown in Fig. 1, where active damping, harmonic 2
res
current compensation, and dc-link voltage control are all con- Gs (s) = . (9)
s2 + 2res s + res
2
sidered. Regarding active damping, it has earlier been demon-
strated on LCL-filter-based SAPF in [25], where the filter The results are plotted in Fig. 5, where a feature noted
capacitor current was measured and fed to the inner current with the real pole is its slowing down of the overall step
feedback control loop to imitate a virtual damping resistor. response, hence leading to a longer settling time. It, however,
Although the controlled system can eventually be stabilized damps transient oscillations more forcefully, leading to smaller
in the steady state, its damping gain at resonance frequency overshoots at all damping factors. Based on these observations,
was not analytically determined, but rather obtained through a recommended value for with active damping incorporated
trial and error. Proper guide on how to choose the damping is 0.7, since it leads to a smooth system recovery with no
TANG et al.: GENERALIZED DESIGN OF HIGH PERFORMANCE SHUNT ACTIVE POWER FILTER WITH OUTPUT LCL FILTER
Fig. 5. Step responses of Gs (s) and closed-loop of Gpd (s).
noticeable overshoot and an acceptably short response time.
At times, can also be chosen slightly smaller, like 0.5, to
introduce a safer phase margin (see Fig. 3), but slightly higher
overshoot. Further reduction of is, however, not recom-
mended, since it will not improve the phase response too much,
but only lead to even serious oscillations, as seen in Fig. 5. Upon
deciding on the value of , Kd can follow up be determined
using (8) without much difficulty.
Proceeding on to the inner current control loop, its respon-
sibilities are clarified as power flow regulation and harmonic
current compensation. Unlike those methods proposed in [19],
[23], [25], where both nonlinear load and SAPF currents were
sensed, only the line currents are measured here, and controlled
to be balanced and sinusoidal. One set of current sensors, to-
gether with the load harmonic extraction module for generating
the SAPF reference currents, are therefore eliminated, leading
to a simpler control implementation. For unity power factor
operation, the reactive grid current reference should further be
set to zero, while using the following proportional-integral (PI)
controller in the synchronous dq frame for forcing the grid
current to track an active reference per phase:
 
1
Gcf (s) = Kpc 1 + (10)
c s
where Kpc and c are, respectively, the proportional gain and
integral time constant. As Kpc dominates the bandwidth of the
inner current control loop, its value must properly be chosen to
ensure that c falls well within the frequency range discussed
in Section II, and indicated in Fig. 3. For that, the following
equation can be used for calculating Kpc [26], after deciding
on the value of c (= 0.3res , as explained earlier):
c Lt c (Lf f + Lgf )
Kpc = . (11)
Vdc /2 Vdc /2
The value of c , on the other hand, mainly determines the
fundamental steady-state tracking error and should therefore be
small. A conservative value recommended for it to avoid im-
pacting on system stability, like the reduction of phase margin,
is given in
{Gcf (jc )} = 90 arctan c c 2 a much smaller voltage drop across it. The dc-link voltage
and c 30/c . (12)
It should also be noted that adding this PI controller in the
current control loop will introduce an additional pair of zero
and pole to the closed-loop response. These added terms are,
1447
however, close to each other, allowing their effects to cancel
out. The overall system response would, therefore, still be
dominated by those three poles indicated in Fig. 4.
Adding on to the fundamental current regulation is the com-
pensation for harmonic currents, which can be implemented in
the synchronous dq frame by using multiple paralleled resonant
controllers, expressed as

k
Kih s
Gch (s) = 2 + (6n )2
(13)
n=1
s n
where n , Kih , and k represent the nominal angular frequency,
respective resonant gain, and highest harmonic order that can
be compensated. Rather than (13), resonant controllers placed
in the stationary frame can also be used, but would result in
more terms for summation. This is explained in [27], where it
is shown that a resonant controller in the synchronous frame is
more effective, since it represents two equivalent resonant terms
in the stationary frame for compensating two harmonics. Other
details on the discretization and optimization of the resonant
controllers can be found in [27], [28], and are therefore not
explicitly elaborated here.
Returning back to k in (13), its value should rightfully be
much smaller than the specified resonance frequency. That
then corresponds to the low frequency range shown in Fig. 3,
whereas mentioned earlier, would cause the LCL filter to
behave like a small inductance. Output current produced by
the SAPF in this range can, therefore, be of high slew rate
for tracking the harmonic reference accurately. A first-order
L-filter, designed to produce the same switching ripple filtering,
would not be able to respond that fast because of its larger
inductance. A possible solution for it is to tune up its controller
proportional gain to maximize the system bandwidth. This,
however, is quite hard to achieve in reality, since it can lead
to unwanted noise amplification, and hence instability.
Moving next to the outer voltage control loop of the SAPF,
its responsibility is to keep the dc-link capacitor voltage con-
stant by compensating for active power losses in the system.
Its realization can, therefore, be just the stationary-frame PI
controller Gv (s) written in (14), whose high dc gain would
force the tracking error to zero
 
1
Gv (s) = Kpv 1 + (14)
v s
where Kpv is the proportional gain, and v is the time constant
of the integral term. Gv (s) here must rightfully be designed to
be much slower than the current controller Gc (s)(= Gcf (s) +
Gch (s)), so as to avoid interference between them.
Another feature exhibited by the dc-link control loop is its
lower dc voltage requirement. This is possible for the LCL
filter, since its total inductance is much smaller, and hence
the unfiltered converter output needs to compensate for only
can, therefore, be reduced, while yet maintaining the same
high modulation index that is less prone to overmodulation.
This is, however, not true for the L-filter-based SAPF, which
always requires a larger inductance, and hence a larger voltage
drop across it. Consequently, its output current would run
1448 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 59, NO. 3, MARCH 2012

Fig. 6. Simulated results of LCL-filter-based SAPF when subjected to a 33% Fig. 7. Simulated results of L-filter-based SAPF when subjected to a 33% to
to 100% step-up load change. 100% step-up load change.

into saturation way earlier than that of an LCL-filter-based

SAPF system. Being applied to SAPF also leads to a more
prominent voltage drop, since it deals with sizable harmonic
currents flowing through sizable inductive impedance that is k
times larger than the fundamental. In contrast, similar effects
experienced by grid-tied inverters and rectifiers would likely
be less obvious, since they deal with fundamental currents and
inductive impedances only.

IV. G ENERALIZED D ESIGN P ROCEDURE AND E XAMPLE

Based on reasons discussed earlier about parameter sizing,
the generalized design procedure for LCL-filter-based SAPF
is now presented in per-unit terms for easier future system
scalability. The procedure would quite expectedly begin by
defining the highest order harmonic current k that needs to
be compensated. According to Section II, the cutoff frequency
c and resonance frequency res should then be larger than
kn and kn /0.3, respectively (n being earlier defined as the
nominal fundamental frequency). To be slightly more conserv-
ative so as to fully avoid interference between harmonic current
compensation and resonance damping, the resonance frequency
can instead be set to
res = kn /0.25 = 4kn .
To next cater for sufficient switching harmonic suppression,
the desired switching frequency of the converter can be set two
times larger than the LCL resonance frequency. Even higher
switching frequency can of course be used for better harmonic
attenuation, but would incur additional losses, and therefore
not firmly recommended. With res now decided, the filter
component values can follow up be determined, but before
progressing ahead, some base inductance Lb and capacitance
Cb values need to be defined for per-unit representation. These
bases are written as
Fig. 8. Experimental steady-state results of LCL-filter-based SAPF.
where Zb is the base impedance calculated by dividing the
system rated power from the square of its rated voltage.
Noting also that the grid and converter-side inductances
should be set equal to produce the lowest resonance frequency,
and hence the maximum switching harmonic attenuation, the
set of filter parameters recommended should be
Lf f = Lgf = xLb = xZb /n
(15) Cf = yCb = y/n Zb (17)
where x and y are the per unit inductance and capacitance,
respectively, which are usually chosen below 5% to bring down
the system cost. Substituting (17) to (5), followed by some
simple manipulation, then leads to
xy = 2(n /res )2 = 2(1/4k)2 . (18)
Apparently, (18) has infinite solutions, but it is recommended
here that the total per unit value of the two inductors should be
chosen equal to that of the filter capacitor, hence yielding

Lb = Zb /n Lf f = Lgf = (1/4k)Lb
Cb = 1/n Zb (16) Cf = (1/2k)Cb . (19)
TANG et al.: GENERALIZED DESIGN OF HIGH PERFORMANCE SHUNT ACTIVE POWER FILTER WITH OUTPUT LCL FILTER 1449

Fig. 9. Experimental results of LCL-filter-based SAPF when subjected to a 33% to 100% step-up load change.

The closest commercially available capacitance value should

then be chosen, while the inductance value can be wound
accordingly. If desired, the actual realized resonance frequency
can be calculated using these final chosen reactive values and
should roughly match the value recommended in (15) for the
design. The reactive values, together with the chosen damp-
ing factor (0.5 0.7), cutoff frequency c , and dc-link
voltage Vdc , can next be substituted to (8), (11), and (12) to
determine the important control parameters of Kd , Kpc , and
c , respectively. Other control parameters like Kih in (13) for
harmonic current compensation, and Kpv and v in (14) for dc- Fig. 10. Grid current spectrum versus IEEE 519-1992 standard.
link voltage regulation, can be tuned based on classical outer
loop control and zero tracking error operating principles. These
are well-established and, therefore, not explicitly shown here.
The above design procedure can now be applied to an
example SAPF, whose objective is to compensate up to the
25th harmonic current (k = 25) in a 173-V (line-to-line RMS),
2-kVA, 50-Hz three-phase three-wire system. From (15),
the resonance frequency should rightfully be chosen as
1250/0.25 = 5000 Hz or a value between 1250/0.3 = 4167 Hz
and 5000 Hz. Since the desired switching frequency should
be at least two times larger than the resonance frequency, its
value should be fixed to 10 kHz or more. Using (16), the base
inductance and capacitance values can next be calculated as
47.8 mH and 212 F, respectively. Substituting these bases and
k = 25 to (19) then leads to the calculated values of 0.478 mH Fig. 11. Experimental steady-state results of L-filter-based SAPF.
and 4.24 F for the LCL filter. Based on available commercial
values, the final LCL parameters are chosen as Cf = 5 F
and Lf f = Lgf = 0.5 mH, giving a recalculated resonance and to compare it with the conventional L-filter-based SAPF.
frequency of fres = res /2 = 4504 Hz, which indeed falls The specifications of the designed SAPF and other system
within the range from 4167 Hz to 5000 Hz that has earlier been parameters were based on those derived in Section IV and
identified. Using these reactive parameters, together with = summarized in Table I for comprehensiveness. The ac line
0.5, c = 8485 rad/s, and Vdc = 300 V, the corresponding con- and dc-link voltages stated in Table I were found to give
trol parameters are eventually determined as Kd = 0.09, Kpc = an approximate modulation index of 141/150 = 0.94 for the
0.05, c = 0.0035 s, Kih = 20, Kpv = 0.2, and v = 0.04 s. SAPF converter, which indeed was a reasonably high value.
Such a high value was used for proving the lower likelihood
of entering overmodulation by the LCL-filter-based SAPF.
V. S IMULATION R ESULTS
Beginning with Fig. 6 where the proposed SAPF was sub-
Simulation was conducted with Matlab/Simulink and jected to a 33% to 100% step-up nonlinear load change, the
PLECS, based on the system shown in Fig. 1. The aim was results show a smooth compensation of harmonic currents up
to examine the performance of the proposed SAPF system to the 25th order. Total harmonic distortion (THD, calculated
1450
Fig. 12. Experimental results of L-filter-based SAPF when subjected to a 33% to 100% step-up load change.
Fig. 13. Harmonic spectrum of grid current in high frequency range.
up to the 100th order) of the full load grid current is in fact
only 2.91%, even though the load THD is 44.20%. Modulating
references in the last plot of Fig. 6 are also noted to vary below
unity without entering overmodulation, even with a detected dip
in dc-link voltage during the transient.
For comparison, the LCL network was next replaced by a
5 mH inductor, followed by a retuning of the current controller
gains to produce the same dynamic response, as per the previ-
ous simulation. Subjecting the L-filter-based SAPF to the same
load transient then results in Fig. 7, where a prominent increase
in modulation index is observed with larger power flow. The
increase is for compensating the larger voltage drop across
the L-filter and transient dip in dc-link voltage. That pushes the
system into overmodulation like the example illustrated here,
whose eventual effect is a set of distorted grid currents with
THD as high as 7.79%.
VI. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULT
To validate the proposed SAPF practically, a prototype was
built in the laboratory, based on the same parameter values
listed in Table I and circuit connection shown in Fig. 1, as per
earlier used for simulation. The developed control algorithm
was executed on a dSPACE1103 real-time platform, and the
digital signal processor TMS240F2812 was employed with its
sampling frequency being set as 20 kHz in the controller board,
which is twice of the switching frequency. The first set of
experimental results obtained is shown in Fig. 8, during which
the proposed SAPF is supplying 100% nominal load power
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 59, NO. 3, MARCH 2012
in the steady state. As anticipated, the SAPF compensates the
load harmonic currents well, giving rise to smooth sinusoidal
currents drawn from the grid with a THD of only 3.49%. This is
despite the load currents being heavily distorted with a THD of
40.37%. Also shown in the last plot of Fig. 8 is the modulating
reference for one phase of the SAPF, being fully within the
shaded linear modulation range.
The same demanded performance is shown in Fig. 9, where
a step load transient from 33.3% to 100% of nominal load
is intentionally triggered. This sudden increase in harmonic
currents causes the dc-link voltage Vdc to drop to 279.2 V,
which, due to limited channels available on the digital scope,
is not explicitly shown here. This drop under an undisturbed ac
grid would cause the modulation index to rise to approximately
141/139.6 1.01, which, although is slightly greater unity,
would still not lead to overmodulation problem. The reason is
partly due to the low series impedance of the LCL filter and
partly due to the presence of triplen offset that can clearly be
seen added to the modulating reference of each phase. Transient
events are therefore mostly ridden through smoothly with no
obvious harmonic distortion sensed from the line current. For
further demonstrating that the proposed SAPF meets interna-
tional standard, low-order harmonic spectrum of the resulting
grid current under nominal load condition is plotted in Fig. 10,
which undeniably shows that the IEEE 519-1992 standard has
been met comfortably.
The output filter of the SAPF was subsequently replaced by
a 5-mH inductor, and retested under the same experimental
conditions. Fig. 11 shows the steady-state experimental results,
where slight overmodulation is observed under nominal load
operating condition. This overmodulation is caused by the need
to compensate for a larger voltage drop across the filter im-
pedance, while yet keeping the same low dc-link voltage. Its ex-
tent can in fact worsen under transient conditions, like the 33%
to 100% load step change shown in Fig. 12. The corresponding
effect is of course a distorted grid current, whose low-order
spectrum under nominal load condition is shown in Fig. 10.
The spectrum undoubtedly shows poorer performance than the
IEEE standard with its THD of 7.86% in excess of the normal
5% limit. Adding on to these inferiorities is its poorer switching
TANG et al.: GENERALIZED DESIGN OF HIGH PERFORMANCE SHUNT ACTIVE POWER FILTER WITH OUTPUT LCL FILTER
ripple filtering, even after increasing its filter inductance to be
five times larger than that of the LCL filter. The corresponding
results are shown in Fig. 13, where the switching and associated
sideband harmonics are plotted for both L-filtered and LCL-
filtered SAPFs. The results indeed show the former having
poorer filtering performance, particularly at high frequency.
VII. C ONCLUSION
This paper proposes an LCL-filter-based SAPF for three-
phase three-wire power system, together with its generalized
design and control procedure. Being of higher order, the pro-
posed SAPF provides better filtering without using large pas-
sive components. Its resulting output currents therefore have
high slew rate for accurate harmonic compensation without
unnecessarily entering overmodulation mode during transient.
Stability concerns are, however, more involved but can be
resolved by the proposed design and control tuning method-
ology. Experimental testing of the methodology has proven its
effectiveness in ensuring proper damping, overall stability, and
smooth transient response achieved through a more comprehen-
sive and generalized design procedure.
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Yi Tang (S10) received the B.Eng. degree in elec-
trical engineering from Wuhan University, Wuhan,
China, in 2007 and the M.Sc. degree from Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore, in 2009, where
he is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in
the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.
During the summer of 2007, he was a visiting
scholar with the Institute of Energy Technology,
Aalborg University, Aalborg East, Denmark, where
he worked on the control of grid-interfaced inverters
and uninterruptible power supplies.
1452 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 59, NO. 3, MARCH 2012
Poh Chiang Loh (S01M04) received the B.Eng.
(Hons.) and M.Eng. degrees in electrical engineer-
ing from the National University of Singapore,
Singapore, in 1998 and 2000, respectively, and the
Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Monash
University, Clayton, Vic., Australia, in 2002.
During the summer of 2001, he was a visit-
ing scholar with the Wisconsin Electric Machine
and Power Electronics Consortium, University of
Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, where he worked on
the synchronized implementation of cascaded multi-
level inverters and reduced common mode carrier-based and hysteresis control
strategies for multilevel inverters. From 2002 to 2003, he was a project
engineer with the Defence Science and Technology Agency, Singapore, man-
aging major defense infrastructure projects and exploring new technology for
defense applications. From 2003 to 2009, he was an assistant professor with
the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and since 2009, he is an
associate professor at the same university. In 2005, he has been a visiting
staff first at the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, and then at Aalborg
University, Aalborg East, Denmark. In 2007 and 2009, he again returned to
Aalborg University, first as a visiting staff working on matrix converters and the
control of grid-interfaced inverters, and then as a guest member of the Vestas
Power Program.
Peng Wang (M00) received the B.Sc. degree from
Xian Jiaotong University, Xian, China, in 1978, the
M.Sc. degree from Taiyuan University of Technol-
ogy, Taiyuan, China, in 1987, and the M.Sc. and
Ph.D. degrees from the University of Saskatchewan,
Saskatoon, SK, Canada, in 1995 and 1998,
respectively.
Currently, he is an associate professor of Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore.
Fook Hoong Choo received the B.Sc. degree from
University of Leeds, Leeds, U.K., in 1977, and the
M.Sc. degree from the University of Manchester,
Manchester, U.K., in 1979.
He was employed as a Design Engineer with GEC
at Rugby, U.K. from 1979 to 1983 and Project Engi-
neer with Lucas Research at Birmingham, U.K. from
1983 to 1984. He joined Nanyang Technological
University, Singapore, (formerly Nanyang Techno-
logical Institute), in 1984 where he is currently an
Associate Professor with the School of Electrical and
Electronic Engineering. His current research interests include power electron-
ics, ac drives, magnetics, renewable energy generation and control, and energy,
water and environmental research.
Feng Gao (S07M09) received the B.Eng. and
M.Eng. degrees in electrical engineering from
Shandong University, Jinan, China, in 2002 and
2005, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from the
School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering,
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, in
2009.
From 2008 to 2009, he was a Research Fellow
in Nanyang Technological University. Since 2010,
he joined the School of Electrical Engineering,
Shandong University, where he is currently a Profes-
sor. From September 2006 to February 2007, he was a visiting scholar at the
Institute of Energy Technology, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark.
Dr. Gao was the recipient of the IEEE Industry Applications Society Indus-
trial Power Converter Committee Prize for a paper published in 2006.
Frede Blaabjerg (S86M88SM97F03) re-
ceived the M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering
from Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark, in 1987
and the Ph.D. degree from the Institute of Energy
Technology, Aalborg University, in 1995.
From 1987 to 1988, he was with ABB-Scandia,
Randers, Denmark. In 1992, he became an Assistant
Professor with Aalborg University, where in 1996,
he became an Associate Professor and, in 1998, a
Full Professor of power electronics and drives. In the
period of 20062010, he was the Dean of the faculty
of Engineering, Science, and Medicine at Aalborg University, Denmark. During
the last years, he has held a number of Chairman positions in research policy
and research funding bodies in Denmark. In 2007, he was appointed to the
board of the Danish High Technology Foundation. He is the author or coauthor
of more than 600 publications in his research fields, including the book Control
in Power Electronics (Eds. M. P. Kazmierkowski, R. Krishnan, F. Blaabjerg)
(Academic Press, 2002). His research areas are in power electronics, static
power converters, ac drives, switched reluctance drives, modeling, character-
ization of power semiconductor devices and simulation, power quality, wind
turbines, custom power systems, and green power inverter.
Dr. Blaabjerg has been an Associate Editor of the IEEE T RANSACTIONS
ON I NDUSTRY A PPLICATIONS , IEEE T RANSACTIONS ON P OWER E LEC -
TRONICS , Journal of Power Electronics, and of the Danish journal Elteknik.
In 2006, he was the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE T RANSACTIONS ON P OWER
E LECTRONICS. He was the recipient of the 1995 Angelos Award for his
contribution in modulation technique and control of electric drives and an
Annual Teacher prize from Aalborg University in 1995. In 1998, he was the
recipient of the Outstanding Young Power Electronics Engineer Award from
the IEEE Power Electronics Society. He was also the recipient of nine IEEE
Prize Paper Awards during the last ten years, the C. Y. OConnor Fellowship
in 2002 from Perth, Australia, the Statoil Prize in 2003 for his contributions in
power electronics, and the Grundfos Prize in 2004 for his contributions in power
electronics and drives. From 2005 to 2007, he was a Distinguished Lecturer for
the IEEE Power Electronics Society. It is followed up as Distinguished Lecturer
for the IEEE Industry Applications Society from 2010 to 2011.