IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 45, NO.

1, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2009

249

A Multifunctional Four-Leg
Grid-Connected Compensator
Rajendra R. Sawant, Member, IEEE, and Mukul C. Chandorkar, Member, IEEE

AbstractThere has been a growing demand for using active

power filters (APFs) for grid-connected converter systems based
on nonconventional energy sources such as solar, wind, and fuel
cells. In addition to power quality conditioning, the APF can
also be used for bidirectional active power exchange with the
three-phase four-wire grid and, therefore, acts as a multifunctional
compensator. This paper presents a four-leg shunt multifunctional grid-connected power quality compensator. The compensator reference currents are generated using the instantaneous
p-q-r theory. This paper proposes a simple modification to the
conventional theory to eliminate the source neutral current from
the three-phase four-wire power system. A digital controller is
used to implement dead-beat current control. The outputs of the
digital current controller are used as reference voltages for a 3-D
space vector modulator (3D-SVM). A new approach for pulse
width modulation waveform generation in 3D-SVM is proposed.
All the intermediate steps are discussed from the viewpoint of
implementation on a digital signal processor field-programmable
gate array platform. The multifunctional compensator is analyzed,
simulated, and tested experimentally for the most practical conditions in the power system, and the results are presented.
Index TermsActive power filter (APF), active rectifier, deadbeat current control, multifunctional compensator, p-q-r theory,
3-D space vector modulation.

I. I NTRODUCTION

LOBALLY, the development of electrical systems for renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and fuel cells
is experiencing dramatic growth. These systems either work in
stand-alone or grid-parallel mode. If they work in grid-parallel
mode, the power generated typically needs to be exchanged
with the grid through a dedicated power electronic interface.
These systems generally feed local single-phase or three-phase
loads over a three-phase four-wire distribution feeder [1][3].
Conventionally, the Active Power Filter (APF) is used to
perform power conditioning tasks such as harmonic elimination, reactive power compensation, load balancing, and neutral
current elimination [4], [5]. In addition to these tasks, the
APF can also be used to perform bidirectional active power
exchange with the grid. The shunt APF can be installed in
Paper IPCSD-08-044, presented at the 2007 Power Conversion Conference, Nagoya, Japan, April 25, and approved for publication in the IEEE
TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS by the Industrial Power Converter Committee of the IEEE Industry Applications Society. Manuscript
submitted for review April 1, 2007 and released for publication May 10, 2008.
Current version published January 21, 2009.
R. R. Sawant is with the Department of Electronics and Telecommunication,
Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology, University of Mumbai, Mumbai 400053,
India (e-mail: rrsawant@iitb.ac.in).
M. C. Chandorkar is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian
Institute of TechnologyBombay, Mumbai 400076, India (e-mail: mukul@ee.
iitb.ac.in).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIA.2008.2009704

parallel with a group of adjustable speed drives to compensate

for harmonic distortion [6]. Moreover, in some situations, for
high-power adjustable speed drives, the front-end diode rectifier
is replaced by an active pulse width modulation (PWM) rectifier
which also operates as an APF on the ac side [7]. When the
converter is lightly loaded as a rectifier, the circuit may also
be used to perform compensation functions. This results in
considerable savings in cost and size of the equipment and
man-hours. A very limited work has been reported in literature
over the multifunctional aspects of active rectifier as a shunt
compensator.
Fig. 1 shows typical applications of the active rectifier as an
APF, acting as a multifunctional compensator. Fig. 1(a) shows
an application where a combination of dc and ac drives are used.
The dc drive is connected to point of common coupling (PCC)
through a front-end thyristor-controlled rectifier, which draws
highly nonsinusoidal line currents. The ac-drive is connected
through a front-end active rectifier, which also acts as a compensator for the nonlinear thyristor bridge of dc drive connected
to the PCC. Fig. 1(b) shows an application of a wind-turbine
generator. Here, the front-end voltage-source converter acts as
a compensator for linear/nonlinear, balanced/unbalanced loads
connected to the grid and a bidirectional converter to exchange
the active power generated by the wind-generator to the power
system grid.
To design such a multifunctional compensator, the following
important tasks need to be investigated:
1) selection of the correct topology for voltage source
converter;
2) generation of reference currents for current controller;
3) implementation of pulse width modulator.
A three-phase inverter normally uses two ways of providing
a neutral connection in a three-phase four-wire system. The
first topology consists of splitting the dc-link capacitor in two
and connecting the load neutral to the midpoint. The second
topology uses an additional fourth leg to provide the neutral
connection. A multifunctional compensator using split capacitor topology is discussed in [8].
The split-capacitor topology suffers from problems such
as capacitor voltage unbalance, requirement of expensive and
large value capacitors in case of large neutral current, and
inefficient dc-bus utilization. An extra auxiliary controller is
required to maintain equal capacitor voltages. Moreover, in this
topology, no space vector modulation is possible to increase the
dc-bus utilization.
The four-leg topology, on the other hand, needs an additional
pair of semiconductor switches and a driver circuit. However,
the fourth leg gives an additional degree of freedom to control

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Fig. 1. Applications of multifunctional shunt compensator. (a) As a front-end converter for an adjustable-speed drive while compensating the thyristor-controlled
rectifier of a dc-drive. (b) As a utility interface for a wind-turbine generator.

and compensate the neutral current in a three-phase four-wire

system. In addition, 3-D space vector modulation can be implemented to increase the dc-bus utilization. The 3-D space vector modulator (3D-SVM) provides some additional advantages
such as: low-output distortion, suitability to digital implementation, constant switching frequency, and improvement in dc-bus
utilization by 15% compared to sinusoidal PWM [9][11].
The first few steps for implementation of 3D-SVM such as
identification of prism and tetrahedrons and calculation of duty
cycles are well elaborated in [10] and [11]. The next step is
to choose an appropriate switching scheme and to generate the
four PWM waveforms for the inverter switches. The choice of
the PWM switching scheme for specific applications is already
discussed in [11]. The last and the most important step in
3D-SVM is to translate the duty-cycle information to generate
four PWM waveforms for the given sequencing scheme. This
paper proposes a new and simple approach to implement the
last step in 3D-SVM for a four-leg compensator.
To perform appropriate compensation, it is essential to accurately generate the reference current signals in the time domain.
These references are applied to a PWM current controller to
get the desired compensation. The control algorithms based
on an instantaneous p-q-r theory as described in [13][15]
show fast dynamic response and little time lag. They also
provide adequate control flexibility, mathematical clarity and,
hence, very well suited for the digital implementation [16].
This paper proposes a new and alternate approach based on
the instantaneous p-q-r theory to eliminate the neutral current
drawn from the source with four-leg compensator.

The typical applications of four-leg converter-based compensator are in hybrid transformer-less three-phase four-wire
power system [17], high-frequency (400 Hz) aircraft power
utility [18], single-phase nonlinear loads distributed on different
phases of three-phase four-wire systems [18], [19], etc.
The objective of this paper is to present a four-leg multifunctional grid connected power quality compensator. Section II
describes the basic building block of the proposed compensator. The compensation and control algorithm based on the
instantaneous p-q-r theory is explained in Section III. The
3D-SVM scheme for the four-leg compensation is elaborated
in Section IV. The simulation and experimental results to show
the functioning of the proposed compensator are presented in
Sections V and VI, respectively.
II. F OUR -L EG M ULTIFUNCTIONAL C OMPENSATOR
Fig. 2 shows a block diagram of the proposed compensator.
It consists of a four-leg inverter connected at the PCC to a
three-phase four-wire grid through the interface inductances.
The power system neutral wire is tied to the fourth leg of
the inverter. The switch control signals are derived from a
3D-SVM detailed in the next section. The voltage references for
the 3D-SVM are derived from a digital dead-beat current controller. The compensator reference currents are calculated from
the sensed load currents drawn by nonlinear and unbalanced
single-phase and three-phase loads connected to the grid. The
reference currents are computed by using the instantaneous
p-q-r theory. The compensation objective is to compensate for

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SAWANT AND CHANDORKAR: MULTIFUNCTIONAL FOUR-LEG GRID-CONNECTED COMPENSATOR

Fig. 2.

251

Schematic block diagram of a multifunctional grid-connected compensator with four-leg voltage-source converter.

load current harmonics, reactive power compensation, neutral

current elimination, and to regulate the dc bus during bidirectional active power exchange between the dc side load/source
and the power system grid. All the compensation functions
are executed simultaneously within the limits of the converter
rating. For the purpose of this paper, the following aspects of
multifunctional operation are considered.
1) Normal Compensation Mode: Here, the compensator
would act as a shunt APF, only. It eliminates reactive
power, compensates for harmonics, and provide unbalance load compensation for source-side neutral current
elimination.
2) Rectification Mode: In this mode, the compensator, in
addition to the regular power conditioning, would transfer
average active power from the three-phase ac mains to the
load on dc bus. The dc side load may be a single- or threephase inverter.
3) Negative Power Delivery Mode: In this mode, the compensator transfers average active power from the dc bus
to the three-phase four-wire ac grid. The negative active
power so transfered will be partly used to feed the ac
load or may be fed-back to the grid. While performing
power transfer, the compensator has to perform power
conditioning at the PCC.
III. C ONTROL OF F OUR -L EG
M ULTIFUNCTIONAL C OMPENSATOR
A. Reference Current Generation
The reference currents for the proposed compensator are
generated by using the well-known instantaneous p-q-r theory

[13]. In this theory a rotating 3-D frame of reference is defined,

termed as the p-q-r coordinate system, in addition to 0--
and a-b-c frames of reference. Both 0-- and a-b-c frames
are 3-D stationary reference frames. The three-phase system
voltages and currents appear as rotating vectors in both the
reference frames. The p-q-r coordinates rotate along with the

system voltage space vector

ep , and the three axes are mutually

perpendicular to each other. The space vector

ep is a rotating
voltage 
vector in 0-- reference frame, with a magnitude:
e0 = (e20 + e2 + e2 ). The p-axis is always aligned with
the system voltage space vector. Therefore, in this reference
frame, only p-axis voltage is found to be nonzero, and the other
voltages along q- and r-axes are zero. The detailed description
of the compensation using p-q-r transformation can be found in
[13][15].
In this theory, the instantaneous active power exists only
along the p-axis. The instantaneous powers along the q- and
r-axes are imaginary or reactive powers and are denoted as qq
and qr , respectively. The relation between instantaneous power
and instantaneous load currents in the p-q-r reference frame is
given as

ep ip_L
pL
qqL = ep ir_L .
(1)
qrL
ep iq_L
The above equation shows that there are three degrees of
freedom to control the individual currents to get the desired
instantaneous powers in three-phase four-wire systems. The
p-axis and r-axis instantaneous power consist of both dc
and ac components. The dc components pdc and qr_dc is

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 45, NO. 1, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2009

equivalent to the conventional average active and reactive

power in three-phase systems, respectively. The ac components
of instantaneous powers represent the harmonics and unbalanced conditions present in the power system. The q-axis power
corresponds to the power associated with the flow of neutral
current. This occurs typically due to zero sequence voltages and
currents in three-phase four-wire system.
The steps for calculating the compensator currents in 0--
reference frame are as follows.
1) The PCC voltages and load currents are sensed and
transformed to stationary 0-- reference frame by using
the transformation given in Appendix 1A.
2) The load currents are then transformed from 0-- to the
p-q-r reference frame, as given in Appendix 1B.
3) The compensator current references are set in the p-q-r
reference frame directly in terms of the load currents in
the p-q-r reference frame and are given in the following
matrix equation:

(ip_L )ac
ip
.
iq = iq_L
(2)
0
ir_L ee
ip_L
ir
Here, the terms ip_L , iq_L , and ir_L are the load currents
in p-q-r reference frame, the terms e0 , e , and e are
the PCC voltages
 in 0-- reference frame, and the term
e is equal to (e2 + e2 ). The compensation objective
would be to compensate the entire reactive power and obtain sinusoidal wave-shaping, i.e., to eliminate harmonics
from the source line currents, to perform load balancing,
and to eliminate the source-side neutral current.
4) The compensator reference currents are then transformed
back to 0-- reference frame from p-q-r reference frame
with the reverse transformation.
The source-side neutral current elimination depends on the
zero-axis compensator current ic_0 . With the aforementioned
steps, the zero-axis compensator current is calculated and
expressed in terms of the load currents in 0-- reference
frame as



e0
1
ic_0 =
(e0 i0 +e i +e i )
i0 .

e0
e0
ac
(3)
Conventionally, the above equation is used to compensate
the source neutral current. However, as apparent from (3), the
above method does not lead to complete elimination of the
neutral current from the mains.
The neutral current can be completely eliminated by using
the approach proposed below. In this initially, the current references are set as per (2). Then, the zero-axis compensator current
in 0-- reference frame is modified as ic_0 = i0 . Here,
i0 is the load side zero-axis current. This results in complete
elimination of source neutral current with p-q-r theory, without affecting the filtering characteristics for sinusoidal waveshaping and reactive power compensation.
During active power exchange, the additional term
ip_dclink_comp should be added to p-axis reference current ip
given in (2). This current is obtained from the power term

Fig. 3. Physical positions of the switching vectors in 3D-SVM. (a) Vectors in

3D space. (b) Prism locations on plane in 3D-SVM.

pdclink , which is the output of a dc-link voltage regulation

system, as shown in Fig. 2. The current ip_dclink_comp is
obtained by dividing the power term pdclink
 by the magnitude

of system voltage vector |

ep | = eo = (e20 + e2 + e2 ).
The relevant transformation equations are given in the
Appendix 1.
B. Dead-Beat Current Controller
A digital dead-beat current controller is implemented in
discrete time to make the compensator output current track
the current reference generated by the p-q-r theory. The deadbeat algorithm is implemented in 0-- stationary reference
frame. The system voltage vs and the compensator current ic are
measured in nth sampling time step. The current controller
produces an output voltage vref in the n + 1th step in discrete
time. This voltage is then fed to the 3D-SVM for controlling the

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253

TABLE I
SWITCHING VECTORS IN FOUR-LEG VOLTAGE SOURCE CONVERTER IN 0-- REFERENCE FRAME

inverter switches. The discrete time equation for any k phase

(k can be 0, or ) in 0-- reference frame is given as
vkref (n + 1) = vkref (n) + 2 vks (n)
Lx
[ick_ref (n + 1) ick (n)]
+
Ts
+ Rx [ick_ref (n + 1) + ick (n)] .

(4)

Here, the term vkref is the k-phase output voltage of the current
controller, the term vks is the k-phase PCC voltage, the term
ick_ref is the k-phase compensator current reference, and the
term ick is the k-phase actual compensator current. For and
phases, the terms Rx and Lx are equal to the inverter interface
impedances Ri and Li , respectively. For zero sequence phase,
Rx = Ri + 3Rn ; Lx = Li + 3Ln ; Rn and Ln constitute the
neutral line impedance. The sampling time is denoted as Ts .
IV. T HREE -D IMENSIONAL M ODULATION FOR THE
F OUR -L EG C OMPENSATOR
The major advantage of a four-leg inverter is that the dc-bus
utilization can be improved by using a 3-D space vector modulation. In 3D-SVM, there are 16 possible switching vectors:
fourteen active nonzero vectors and two null vectors. These are
shown in Fig. 3. The entire 3-D Space is divided in 6 prisms
and 24 tetrahedrons. Each prism consists of four tetrahedrons.
An instantaneous reference input vector may lie in any of these
tetrahedrons at any point of time. Table I lists the magnitudes of
different switching vectors in 0-- reference frame in terms of
the dc-link voltage. Fig. 3(a) shows their physical positions in
0-- coordinate system. Fig. 3(b) shows the prism positions
on plane. In this, the X may be either 0 or 1
and depends on the 0-axis position of the vector. The four-leg
inverter is controlled by the following steps:
1) identification of prism;
2) identification of tetrahedrons;
3) duty cycle calculation;
4) generation of PWM sequence for the switches.

Fig. 4. Algorithm for identification of prism.

The 3D-SVM consists of six prisms: 16. The identification of prism is based on the value of the switching vectors
expressed in 0-- reference frame. An algorithm for prism
identification is explained with the help of Fig. 4.
The identification of tetrahedrons from the value of the reference vector in 0-- reference frame is quite tedious. However,
it is simpler from the signs of the reference vector in a-b-c
reference frame. The signs of the space vectors in that reference
frame have a unique combination for each tetrahedron. For
example, in prism-1 and tetrahedron-1, the switching vectors in
a-b-c reference frame follows the condition as: va > 0, vb < 0,
and vc < 0 [11].
The time duration of the switching vectors is computed in
terms of three duty cycles d1 , d2 , and d3 corresponding to
nonzero switching vectors of the tetrahedrons. The fourth duty
cycle d0 corresponds to the zero vector. The computation of
the duty cycles is based on the calculation of the geometric
projection of the reference vector along the three nonzero
switching vectors in a given tetrahedron in which it is lying.
For each tetrahedron, we can find a 3 3 projection matrix: St .
The reference vector in 0-- reference frame at any given time

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TABLE II
TABLE FOR GENERATION OF PWM SEQUENCE CORRESPONDS TO
CLASS-1, SYMMETRICAL SWITCHING SCHEME IN 3D-SVM

Fig. 5. Principle of PWM waveform generation for tetrahedron-1 prism-1.

is denoted by a 3 1 column matrix Sr . At any given instance,

the duty cycle matrix D can be found from the simple matrix
equation

d1
(5)
D = d2 = St1 Sr .
d3
For example, the duty cycle matrix for the tetrahedron T-1 is
1
2

2
1


vr
6
6
6
1

1
0
D1_1 =
vr . (6)
0
2
Vdc
1
2
1
v0r

Furthermore, the duty cycle for the zero vector is given as

d0 = 1 (d1 + d2 + d3 ).

(7)

As mentioned in the introduction, the first few steps for

implementation of 3D-SVM such as identification of prism and
tetrahedrons and calculation of duty cycles are well elaborated
in [10] and [11]. The next step is to choose an appropriate
switching scheme and to generate the four PWM waveforms
for the top switches of the inverter. The choice of the PWM
switching scheme for specific applications is already discussed
in [11]. The last and the most important step in 3D-SVM is
to translate the duty-cycle information to generate four PWM
waveforms for the given sequencing scheme. This paper proposes a simple approach to generate the PWM waveforms for
four-leg compensator.
It has been assumed that the four duty-cycle values d0 d3
are already known prior to this step. The PWM waveforms are
generated by comparing the four signals xa , xb , xc , and xf with
a triangular waveform of constant switching frequency equals
to the sampling frequency of the modulator. The generation of
the PWM waveforms is explained with the help of Fig. 5.

Let x1 , x2 , x3 , and x4 be the four signals calculated from the

duty cycles d1 , d2 , d3 , and d0 as given in the following matrix
equation:
d0

x1
4
d
d
0+ 1

x
4
2
.
(8)
xt = 2 = 2At
d
d
d
0
1
2

x3
4 + 2 + 2
d1
d2
d3
d0
x4
4 + 2 + 2 + 4
In this, At is the peak value of the triangular waveform. The
period of this waveform is Ts , which decides the switching
frequency of the inverter.
The relation between the elements of matrix xt and the
reference voltage signals xa , xb , xc , and xf would be different
for different tetrahedrons. The different schemes of switching
sequences for 3D-SVM and their comparative merits and demerits are elaborated in [11]. Thus, for each sequencing scheme
a specific table can be designed. One such table for symmetrical
switching scheme as mentioned in [11] is shown in Table II.
V. S IMULATION R ESULTS
To validate the performance of the multifunctional compensator, a computer simulation is performed on a three-phase fourwire power system. A combination of linear and nonlinear;
balanced and unbalanced load is connected at the PCC. The
linear load is taken as three unbalanced RL branches. The
nonlinear balanced load is taken as a three-phase thyristorcontrolled rectifier. The nonlinear unbalanced load is considered as three single-phase diode bridge rectifiers. The load
specifications are as shown in Table III.
The four-leg shunt compensator is connected at the PCC.
The source side impedance is selected as: Rs = 10 m; Ls =
1.2 mH. The interface impedance of the compensator is as follows: Ri = 0.02 ; Li = 2.4 mH. The neutral line impedance is
taken as: Rn = 20 m; Ln = 3.0 mH. The sampling time-step
for 3D-SVM is selected as: Ts = 100 s. The sampling time

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TABLE III
SIMULATION SPECIFICATIONS FOR THE LOADS AT PCC

Fig. 6. Simulation waveforms with multifunctional compensator with step change in the active power loading on the dc bus. (a) With positive active power
loading. (b) Negative active power loading.
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TABLE IV
SIMULATION RESULTS FOR OPERATION OF THE COMPENSATOR AS A
SHUNT APF ONLY

step for the dead-beat controller is taken as 20 s. The dc-link

capacitor is chosen as 4700 F. The gains of the proportionalintegral controller used for the regulation of dc link voltage
are given as : kp_dc = 0.2 and ki_dc = 0.04. The reference
voltage for this loop is selected as 800 V. The dc-link capacitor
are considered to be precharged with 700 V at the start of
simulation.
To investigate the transient performance of the multifunctional compensator, two simulation exercises are designed.
In the first, the compensator works in normal compensation
mode for first 0.3 s. Thereafter, a 20-kW PWM inverter is
switched across the dc bus and draws the required active power
from main converter dc link. The main converter responds by
drawing an additional active power from the utility and thus
regulates the common dc bus voltage to the reference voltage
(800 V). The simulation results are shown in Fig. 6(a). Here,
the increased source side line current after switch changeover is
clearly seen. The normal compensation functions are unaffected
due to change in switch position and with additional active
power handling. In the second simulation, a 20-kW PWM rectifier is switched across the dc bus at 0.3 s. The simulation results
are shown in Fig. 6(b). The auxiliary converter feeds active
power to the common dc bus. Here, after the switch changeover,
the main converter responds by sending the additional active
power to the utility and regulates the dc-bus voltage. During
the active power transfer mode, the source line current reduces.
Moreover, the other power quality compensation functions such
as harmonic compensation, reactive power compensation, and
neutral current elimination are achieved, simultaneously, with
active power exchange. This situation typically occurs when a
wind energy system is interfaced and shares active power with
the utility grid.
The simulation results for first 0.2 s of simulation time,
when the compensator acts as a shunt APF only, are tabulated
in Table IV. Table V corresponds to the last 0.1 s, when an
auxiliary inverter load is present across the dc bus. The Total
Harmonic Distortion (THD) figures for both PCC voltages and
compensated source currents are well below 5% limits. The
neutral current is substantially reduced with the newly proposed
control scheme.
VI. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS
To demonstrate multifunctional capability experimentally,
the 3D-SVM scheme described above was implemented on a
32-bit, floating point, 75-MHz Digital Signal Processor (DSP).

TABLE V
SIMULATION RESULTS FOR OPERATION OF THE COMPENSATOR AS AN
APF AND AN ACTIVE RECTIFIER, SIMULTANEOUSLY

Fig. 7. Output reference signals and duty cycle waveforms in 3-D space vector
modulator for balanced three-phase 415-V 50-Hz input voltage with Vdclink =
700 V.

The DSP implementation results of 3D-SVM for balanced

sinusoidal reference voltages are shown in Fig. 7. The upper
plot shows third harmonic injection in PWM reference signals,
which are the replica of the inverter phase voltages due to
3D-SVM. This shows the correctness of the modulation scheme
as explained above. The lower plot shows the typical duty cycle
waveforms with balanced sinusoidal reference signals.
To investigate the multifunctional performance of the compensator with the proposed control scheme, an experimental
setup is built, as shown in Fig. 2. The power circuit is built with
an insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) converter assembly.
The control algorithm is implemented on an integrated DSP
field-programmable gate array (FPGA) board with a floating
point DSP: Texas Instruments TMS320VC33 and Xilinx
XC3S500E FPGA. The sampling time was 30 s, and the
actual code execution time was 19.4 s. The DSPs instruction
cycle was 13.3 ns. The pulse width modulator was implemented
on the FPGA with a 20-MHz clock. The inverter switching
frequency was 5 kHz. The line-neutral utility voltage was
80 V rms. The linear load was unbalanced and consisted of
a two phase RL load with R = 2.5 and L = 10 mH.
The balanced nonlinear load consisted of a three-phase diodebridge rectifier dc load with capacitor filter and Rdc = 60 .
The IGBT converter assembly was rated for 30 A rms output
current and 1200-V dc bus with a 850 F/1600 V capacitor. The
experimentation was carried out for the three different modes as
described in Section II with the four-leg multifunctional

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257

Fig. 9. Experimental waveforms with multifunctional compensator in

rectifier mode.

Fig. 8. Experimental waveforms showing source side voltage and currents.

(a) Without compensation. (b) With compensator started at PCC and acting
only as an APF.

compensator. The dc bus voltage reference is 300 V for all

three modes.
Fig. 8(a) shows the uncompensated utility phase voltages and
distorted source line currents in addition to the neutral current.
Fig. 8(b) shows the compensated source voltages, the source
line currents, and the source neutral current when the compensator is acting as APF at the PCC in the normal compensation
mode. Here, the source currents are seen to be balanced and
in phase with the respective phase voltages. The source neutral
current is effectively eliminated, as the compensator supplies
the necessary neutral current to the unbalanced load. The dc
bus voltage is regulated at 300 V.
In the next experiment, as shown in Fig. 9, the dc bus is
loaded with a resistive load (R = 180 ). The compensator
starts with an initial low dc-bus voltage (200 V). It starts regulating at 300 V immediately after the converter start-up. The
compensator acts as a conventional APF and a PWM rectifier,

Fig. 10. Experimental waveforms with multifunctional compensator in negative power delivery mode.

feeding additional active power to the dc bus, simultaneously.

The simultaneous reactive power and harmonic compensation
features, and load balancing, are clearly apparent.
Fig. 10 shows the experimental waveforms with the compensator started with a higher dc bus voltage of 350 V, charged with
an auxiliary single-phase rectifier. After starting the compensator, the dc bus voltage is regulated at 300 V and the additional
active power flows to the ac load from the dc bus. The utility

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258

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 45, NO. 1, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2009

TABLE VI
E XPERIMENTALLY M EASURED C OMPENSATOR AND L OAD P OWERS IN
D IFFERENT M ULTIFUNCTIONAL M ODES

line current is reduced due to additional active power supplied

by the dc bus. The compensator acts as an APF and transfers
active power from dc bus to the ac load, simultaneously.
In both these experiments, the proposed compensator acts
as a multifunctional compensator. It balances the source line
current with reduction in the source neutral current, and reduces
source reactive power and performs bidirectional active power
exchange across the dc bus.
A fast Fourier transform analysis shows that the source
current harmonics are substantially reduced. The average THD
in the source currents is found to improve from 48% to 13%.
The average utility PCC voltage THD is improved from 6.5%
to 3.76%.
Table VI lists compensator power and load power measured
during experimentation with different operating modes as detailed in Section II. Here, (p)dc is the dc component of the
instantaneous p-axis power; this corresponds to the average
active power. Furthermore, (qr )dc is the dc component of the instantaneous r-axis power; this corresponds to the conventional
reactive power. Lastly, (qq )ac is the rms value of the ac component of the q-axis power; this corresponds to the power due
to harmonics and unbalance conditions. The values tabulated
show that the multifunctional compensator is able to transfer the
active power in both directions while performing regular power
conditioning at the PCC in three-phase four-wire system.
During the normal compensation mode, the compensator
drew 275-W average active power to meet the power losses in
the compensator and the interface inductors. During the rectifier
mode, the compensator drew 795-W average active power, out
of which, 520 W were supplied to dc bus to meet the dc load,
and the rest was utilized in meeting the losses in the converter
system. During the negative power delivery mode, the converter
drew 1.7-kW negative average active power. This is essentially
a power supplied by another source at the dc bus. From this
power, 1.25 kW was supplied to the ac side load, nearly 275 W
went in meeting converter losses, and remaining 175-W active power was fed back to the grid. In all three modes, the
compensator reactive power was nearly equal and opposite
to the load average reactive power. The best reactive power
and unbalance compensation was achieved with the normal
compensation mode.

proposed algorithms for the modulation scheme with 3D-SVM

have been implemented on a DSP-FPGA platform and used for
the control of the four-leg multifunctional compensator. The
operation was verified through simulations and experiments,
with the following conclusions.
1) The simulation and experimental results with the proposed compensator and the control methods were effective in multifunctional operation.
2) The source neutral current is eliminated with the proposed method as is apparent from both simulation and
experiments.
3) The instantaneous p-q-r theory is found suitable for multifunctional compensation for three-phase four wire grid
connected systems.
4) The operation of the multifunctional compensator in three
prominent modes: Normal compensation mode, rectification mode, and negative power delivery mode are
demonstrated by simulation and experimentation.
A PPENDIX I
R EFERENCE F RAME T RANSFORMATIONS
A. a-b-c to 0-- Transformations

1
e
e = 2 0
3
1
e0

12

3
2
1
2


1
i
i = 2 0
3
1
i0
2

12

3
2
1

12
ea

23 eb
1
ec

(9)

12
ia

23 ib .
1
ic
2

(10)

B. 0-- to p q r Transformations
The voltage equation in matrix form is written as

e0
ep
1
0
eq =

e0
er
e

e
e
e
0
e
e
ee0

e
e0 e
e
e e
e0

e0
e (11)
e



where eo = (e20 + e2 + e2 ); e = (e2 + e2 ).
The load currents in p-q-r reference frame are written as
below

e0
ip_L
iq_L = 1 0
e0
ir_L
e

e
e
e
0
e
e
ee0

e
e0 e
e
e e
e0

i0
i .
i
(12)

VII. C ONCLUSION
This paper has discussed the operation of a four-leg
multifunctional grid-connected compensator for three-phase
four-wire systems. The compensator was operated to perform
reactive power compensation, harmonic compensation, unbalance compensation with source neutral current elimination and
real power transfer, simultaneously. All the necessary steps for
digital implementation of 3D-SVM are discussed in detail. The

C. p-q-r to 0-- Transformation

e0
ic_0
ic_ = 1 e
e0
ic_
e

e
e
0
e
e0 e
e

e
ipc
e
ee0
iqc . (13)
e e
irc
e0

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SAWANT AND CHANDORKAR: MULTIFUNCTIONAL FOUR-LEG GRID-CONNECTED COMPENSATOR

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Rajendra R. Sawant (M00) was born in

Maharashtra State, India, on February 19, 1968. He
received the B.E. degree in electrical engineering
from Marathwada University, Aurangabad, India, in
1988, and the M.Tech. degree with specialization in
power electronics and power systems from Indian
Institute of TechnologyBombay, Mumbai, India,
in 1996.
In January 2003, he was with the Ph.D. program in the Department of Electrical Engineering,
Indian Institute of TechnologyBombay. He was involved in the development of resonant converter-based induction heating systems as a Power Electronics Consultant and Researcher from 1996 to 2002 with
different small-scale industries in Mumbai. He is involved in teaching power
electronics and different basic subjects in electrical engineering for the last
18 years at Mumbai University at the undergraduate and graduate level.
Currently, he is a Professor and Head of the Department of Electronics
and Telecommunication, Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology, University of
Mumbai. His research interests include active power filters and power conditioners, grid-connected converter control, converters for distributed generations
and microgrid, resonant converters for induction heating systems, etc.

Mukul C. Chandorkar (M84) received the B.Tech.

degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of TechnologyBombay, Mumbai, India, in
1984, the M.Tech. degree in electrical engineering
from the Indian Institute of TechnologyMadras,
Chennai, India, in 1987, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison,
in 1995.
He has several years experience in the power
electronics industry in India, Europe, and the USA.
During 19961999, he was with ABB Corporate
Research, Ltd., Baden-Daettwil, Switzerland. He is currently an Associate
Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of
TechnologyBombay. His technical interests include electric power quality
compensation, drives, and the real-time simulation of electrical systems.

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