Optimal design of shunt active power filter for power quality enhancement using predator-prey based firefly optimization

Abstract

Abstract The nonlinear behavior of present day power electronic based equipments generates harmonics that lead to overheating, efficiency reduction and malfunctioning of the utility equipments. Shunt active power filters (SAPF), comprising of a three phase voltage source inverter (VSI) and a dc capacitor, are commonly used to eliminate the harmonics at source side. The design of these filters is very important in obtaining satisfactory performances. The classical design methods and the tuning of controller gain parameters may not yield optimal performances. This paper formulates the design of SAPF as an optimization problem with an objective of minimizing the total harmonic distortion (THD) and solves it using predator-prey based firefly optimization (PPFO). The PPFO inherits the features of predator-prey concept and firefly optimization (FO) and helps to get away from the suboptimal traps, thereby ensuring global optimal design. The paper also includes the simulation results of a few test cases representing different types of harmonic loads and illustrates the superior performances of the proposed design philosophy.