Power Quality Improvement in Fuel Cell Based Micro Grid with Optimized Shunt Active Power Filter

The use of power electronics based equipment produces harmonics in the power system due to their nonlinear characteristics. The harmonics cause overheating, losses, malfunctioning of equipment, abnormal unwanted circuit breaker tripping, and mishandling of the utility appliances. Shunt active power filters (SAPF) are designed to minimize the harmonic effects in the power system. The design of SAPF plays a key role in eliminating the harmonic effects in microgrids. The classical method of design and tuning of parameters may not give satisfactory performances to the service. In this work, a SAPF is designed for a PV & fuel cell-based microgrid. The SAPF is designed with help of firefly and modified firefly optimization techniques. The simulation results of such filters with different optimization algorithms are compared.