Current harmonics is one of the most significant power quality issues which has attracted tremendous research interest. Shunt active power filter (SAPF) is the best solution to minimize harmonic contamination, but its effectiveness is strictly dependent on how quickly and accurately its control algorithms can perform. This manuscript reviews various types of existing control algorithms which have been employed for controlling operation of SAPF. Harmonic extraction, DC-link capacitor voltage regulation, current control and synchronizer algorithms are examined and discussed. The most relevant techniques which have been applied for each control algorithm are described and contrasted in an organized manner to identify their respective strengths and weaknesses. It is found that the applied control algorithms differ in two conditions: (1) the condition where harmonic current distortion is treated by the SAPF in the presence of non-ideal source voltage; and (2) the condition where multilevel inverter is employed as the circuit topology of SAPF.

Owing to the destructive impacts of harmonic currents, the topic of reducing their impacts on power system has attracted tremendous research interests. In this regard, a shunt active power filter (SAPF) is recognized to be the most reliable instrument. It performs by first detecting the harmonic currents that are present in a harmonic-contaminated power system, and subsequently generates and injects corrective mitigation current back into the power system to cancel out all the detected harmonic currents. This means that other than the ability to generate corrective mitigation current itself, it is actually more important to make sure that the SAPF is able to operate in phase with the operating power system, so that the mitigation current can correctly be injected. Hence, proper synchronization technique needs to be integrated when designing the control algorithms of SAPF. This paper critically discusses and analyzes various types of existing phase synchronization techniques which have been applied to manage operation of SAPF; in terms of features, working principle, implementation and performance. The analysis provided can potentially serve as a guideline and provision of information on selecting the most suitable technique for synchronizing SAPF with the connected power system.

In this paper, a new reference current generation method is proposed for effective harmonics mitigation and reactive power compensation of three-level neutral-point diode clamped (NPC) inverter-based shunt active power filter (SAPF) under non-ideal grid voltage conditions. The proposed method is named as dual fundamental component extraction (DFCE) algorithm. In operation, the proposed algorithm extracts at the same time, the desired fundamental current and voltage components for generating reference current and synchronization phases respectively. As a result, the proposed algorithm is able to generate reference current which ensures in phase operation of SAPF with the operating power system, without depending on any phase-locked loop (PLL) elements. Besides, the proposed algorithm employs self-tuning filter (STF) for accurate computation of the fundamental components. Design concept and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm are thoroughly studied and evaluated in MATLAB-Simulink. Additionally, a laboratory prototype utilizing TMS320F28335 digital signal processor (DSP) is built to validate its feasibility. Encouraging findings obtained from both simulation and experimental works demonstrate effectiveness of the proposed algorithm under both ideal and non-ideal grid voltage conditions.

Harmonic distortion in power networks has greatly reduced power quality and this affects system stability. In order to mitigate this power quality issue, the shunt active power filter (SAPF) has been widely applied and it is proven to be the best solution to current harmonics. This paper evaluates the performance of the modified synchronous reference frame extraction (MSRF) algorithm with fuzzy logic controller (FLC) based current control pulse width modulation (PWM) inverter of three-phase three-wire SAPF to mitigate current harmonics. The proposed FLC is designed with a reduced amount of membership functions (MFs) and rules, and thus significantly reduces the computational time and memory size. Modeling and simulations of SAPF are carried out using MATLAB/Simulink R2012a with the power system toolbox under steady-state condition, and this is followed with hardware implementation using a TMS320F28335 digital signal processor (DSP), Specrum Digital Inc., Stafford, TX, USA. The results obtained demonstrate a good and satisfactory response to mitigate the harmonics in the system. The total harmonic distortion (THD) for the system has been reduced from 25.60% to 0.92% and 1.41% in the simulation study with and without FLC, respectively. Similarly for the experimental study, the SAPF can compensate for the three-phase load current by reducing THD to 5.07% and 7.4% with and without FLC, respectively.

A new control technique known as inverted error deviation (IED) control is incorporated into the main DC-link capacitor voltage regulation algorithm of a three-level neutral-point diode clamped (NPC) inverter-based shunt active power filter (SAPF) to enhance its performance in overall DC-link voltage regulation so as to improve its harmonics mitigation performances. In the SAPF controller, DC-link capacitor voltage regulation algorithms with either the proportional-integral (PI) or fuzzy logic control (FLC) technique have played a significant role in maintaining a constant DC-link voltage across the DC-link capacitors. However, both techniques are mostly operated based on a direct voltage error manipulation approach which is insufficient to address the severe DC-link voltage deviation that occurs during dynamic-state conditions. As a result, the conventional algorithms perform poorly with large overshoot, undershoot, and slow response time. Therefore, the IED control technique is proposed to precisely address the DC-link voltage deviation. To validate effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed algorithm, simulation work in MATLAB-Simulink and experimental implementation utilizing a TMS320F28335 Digital Signal Processor (DSP) are performed. Moreover, conventional algorithms with PI and FLC techniques are tested too for comparison purposes. Both simulation and experimental results are presented, confirming the improvement achieved by the proposed algorithm in terms of accuracy and dynamic response in comparison to the conventional algorithms.

In the transportation sector, electric battery bus (EBB) deployment is considered to be a potential solution to reduce global warming because no greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are directly produced by EBBs. In addition to the required charging infrastructure, estimating the energy consumption of buses has become a crucial precondition for the deployment and planning of electric bus fleets. Policy and decision-makers may not have the specific tools needed to estimate the energy consumption of a particular bus network. Therefore, many state-of-the-art studies have proposed models to determine the energy demand of electric buses. However, these studies have not critically reviewed, classified and discussed the challenges of the approaches that are applied to estimate EBBs’ energy demands. Thus, this manuscript provides a detailed review of the forecasting models used to estimate the energy consumption of EBBs. Furthermore, this work fills the gap by classifying the models for estimating EBBs’ energy consumption into small-town depot and big-city depot networks. In brief, this review explains and discusses the models and formulations of networks associated with well-to-wheel (WTW) assessment, which can determine the total energy demand of a bus network. This work also reviews a survey of the most recent optimization methods that could be applied to achieve the optimal pattern parameters of EBB fleet systems, such as the bus battery capacity, charger rated power and the total number of installed chargers in the charging station. This paper highlights the issues and challenges, such as the impact of external factors, replicating real-world data, big data analytics, validity index, and bus routes’ topography, with recommendations on each issue. Also, the paper proposes a generic framework based on optimization algorithms, namely, artificial neural network (ANN) and particle swarm optimization (PSO), which will be significant for future development in implementing new energy consumption estimation approaches. Finally, the main findings of this manuscript further our understanding of the determinants that contribute to managing the energy demand of EBBs networks.