Reduction of Harmonic Currents with a Very Low-Cost Power Factor Corrector Stage in Three Phase Power Supply Systems

Inhalt:
In the last thirty years, power electronics has become the dominant factor to increase the power conversion efficiency, but also in the deterioration of the electromagnetic environment, causing declining quality of the power line and increasing the level of the conducted and radiated Electromagnetic Interferences (EMI). Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) has become a “hot issue” for industries, since Standards on current harmonics reduction have been published. A well-known solution to reduce the low frequency harmonics is to use Power Factor Correctors (PFCs). In the last two decades many solutions to improve the quality of the power line using PFCs were presented, but most of them are quite complex and expensive. In this paper, a very low-cost PFC for three phase systems for low-to-medium power applications is analyzed. A prototype of PFC to supply brushless drives has been built and tested. Simulation and experimental results are shown to validate the improvement of the power factor and the decrease in the harmonics content in the line currents.