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Microcontroller-based Power Factor Improvement using Switched Single

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 Microcontroller based Power Factor Improvement by using Switched single Capacitor

Microcontroller-based Power Factor Improvement using

Switched Single Capacitor
Md. Raju Ahmed*, Md. Humayan Kabir Khan, and Ashish Kumar Karmaker

Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Dhaka University of Engineering & Technology, Gazipur, Bangaldesh

ABSTRACT

Low power factor due to the lagging load causes high power losses and resulting less efficiency. Although,
several methods are existing for Power Factor Improvement (PFI). However, this paper presents a new
technique which uses single large shunt capacitor as a replacement for a bank of switching capacitors.
Bidirectional switch is used to change the voltage across capacitor & compensating capacitor current,
resulting in improved power factor. Firstly, the proposed system is simulated using Proteus software and then
practically implemented it using microcontroller. It is found that the proposed PFI system attains unity power
factor for lagging loads regardless of load current & power factor. In addition, the proposed system will also
protect the load against over current and under voltage.

1. Introduction software [6]. Single-phase PFC consists of two active

switches, an inductor and a small buffering capacitor can
Almost all the loads used for industrial and house hold improve input power factor to 0.98 and efficiency up to
appliances are inductive in nature which leads to the power 93.90% showed in a research [7]. The reactive power
factor lagging. Low power factor increases power losses. compensation scheme complies the MATLAB model
There are lot of organizations and researchers working proposed by the authors comprises thyristor-controlled
to improve the power factor to minimize the losses and SVCs which can eliminate harmonics along with low
maximize the efficiency [1]. power factor improvement [8].
Low power factor does not affect household appliances
greatly but huge difficulty occurs in industry. As it is Another scheme proposed by a research consists of an
known that, most of the industrial loads are inductive active PFC system using a power MOSFET in boost
in nature and produces reactive power which makes the converter demonstrate that it will perform better than
power factor to be lower. Power factor improvement a scheme with a large capacitor for improving power
(PFI) unit is mainly responsible for compensating reactive factor [9]. In another research performed on single phase
power to lower the losses and to increase the efficiency. PFC explored that, PSO based PWM control strategy is
The user of the electricity has to pay the extra bill for the more efficient to provide unity power factor, lower level
low lagging power factor. Reactive power compensation of harmonics & well-synchronized output voltage than
is necessary to improve the power quality of the ac supply Bang-Bang control strategy [10]. Shwehdi and Sultan
systems. [11] suggested some mathematical calculations for power
factor correction and reactive power requirement of the
There are numerous methods exist for power factor system along with the capacitor size estimation. Celtekligil
improvement. Such as- capacitor bank, synchronous [12] discussed how the dynamic PFC and voltage
condensers, phase advancers and compensators etc. regulation can be applied in a light rail transportation
Traditional PFI unit consists a number of capacitors in system. Choudhury [13] demonstrates a design and
parallel which connected to the load through magnetic implementation of a cost-effective PFI unit for small
contactor [2-4]. The number of capacitors is determined signal low power loads. The entire process of the design
by the required kVAR. By using these methods, always segmented as modeling of small signal load, selection
the power factor cannot be maintained to unity and of appropriate capacitors & design of switching circuits.
Shahid and Shabir [14] offered the design of PFI unit
also the magnetic contactor shows frequent technical
using PLC to achieve the desired efficiency with relatively
problems [5].
reduced cost. The solution utilizes an algorithm to trigger
A research demonstrated that, efficient use of Static VAR switching capacitors in order to compensate excessive
Compensators can improve under voltage & low power reactive components and thereby improved power
factor problems in a substation designed with ETAP factor. An analysis and simulation have been performed

*
Corresponding author’s email: [email protected]

DUET Journal 21 Volume 4, Issue 1, December 2018

 Microcontroller based Power Factor Improvement by using Switched single Capacitor

by Sharma and Haque [15] in case of metal halide high a fixed capacitors bank might result in over-compensation
intensity discharge lamps. In the analysis, modified otherwise under-compensation results lead to low power
boost converter using active devices was proposed along factor. Fig. 1 shows the active and reactive component of
with PI controller to stabilize the control loops. Allah current. In this research, instead of using a bank of capacitors
[16] proposed an automatic PFC based on Alienation a single large capacitor is used. The switched capacitor is
technique designed by Alternative Transient Program used in the proposed system with a low pass filter.
(ATP) & MATLAB that can calculate the original power
factor by continuous monitoring. This technique can also To compensate using capacitor, the reactive current
fix the necessary number of capacitor banks to acquire the element I sin Ø must be equal to the capacitor current,
desired power factor. IC. Thus,

Based on the above discussion, it is seen that many authors V

I sin Ø= IC= ----------- (1)
worked on power factor correction; all of them used a XC
number of parallel capacitors to improve the power factor The capacitive current, IC depends on the voltage across the
step by step. These methods cannot attain unity power capacitor, V. According to the equation (1), controlling
factor for all load conditions. Moreover, the studies were the voltage across the capacitor, the compensating
performed on PFI based on capacitor bank or compensator capacitor current can be controlled. The voltage across
only simulated their proposed scheme, thus it is necessary the capacitor is varied by a switch which changes its duty
to implement the circuit practically and verify the results cycle with a PWM signal. The duty cycle of the PWM
which are the main focus of this paper. signal is changed to control reactive current and finally
In the proposed system, a single switched capacitor is attains required power factor.
used instead of a number of capacitors connected in TON
parallel. This single capacitor will always get connected Duty Cycle, D= ---------------- ; (2)
to the load and thus the voltage across the capacitor will TON+TOFF
be varied to regulate the compensating current. Therefore, The proposed scheme detects the load power factor and the
the expensive magnetic contactor can be omitted and magnitude of the load current. Load current is measured
continuous control of power factor can be made possible. using the current transformer and precision rectifier. The
Consequently, the proposed system will be robust and current & voltage waveform is digitized using logic gates.
more cost-effective than the earlier methods. Then, the phase difference between current and voltage
The specific objectives of the proposed PFI scheme are: is estimated. The load current and phase angle of voltage
a. To design and implement a PFI unit which advances and current is used as the input of a microcontroller. High
the power factor of lagging loads using PWM frequency PWM signal is produced by PIC microcontroller
switched capacitor. for the bidirectional switch whose duty cycle varies
with the product of load current and load power factor.
b. To measure and display the values of load current,
Therefore, the voltage across the capacitor also varies and
power factor, capacitive current, circuit input current
the power factor reaches to unity. Opto-coupler is used
and overall power factor in the LCD display.
to isolate the gate signal. The block diagram for PFI unit
c. To design a system that protects the load against over using a single capacitor and microcontroller is shown in
current. Fig. 2. Load voltage is reduced by using PT while power
The rest of the paper is sectionalized as followings: factor is measured using zero crossing detection circuit.
Section 2 describes the block diagram of the proposed
scheme, section 3 shows the circuit diagram using I cos a
Proteus software using different load condition, section 4 o V
comprises the implemented system using microcontroller
and finally, section 5 elaborates the result and discussion.

2. Block Diagram of the Proposed

System
I I sin
The wide variation of lagging loads caused the necessity
for controlling reactive power which provides the desired
power factor. This task is generally accomplished by
using switched capacitors. In case of fluctuating loads, the b
KVAR of the load also varies over extensive limits. Thus, Fig. 1: Active and reactive components.

DUET Journal 22 Volume 4, Issue 1, December 2018

 Microcontroller based Power Factor Improvement by using Switched single Capacitor

220v, 50Hz Start

Single
P.T C.T-1 Switch LPF IGBT
Capacitor Initializing of System

ZCD-V ZCD-1 LCD Measure Irms

Gate Driver RB2 = = 1

Precision Microcontroller Circuit
Rectifier PIC16F877A
Start Timer0

C.T-2 RB4 = = 1
Opto-coupler

ZCD-1 Stop Timer0

Measure engle between V

Precision Microcontroller LED PWM and I through uc
Rectifier PIC16F72 Output

Display Load Current &

Inductive Load Power Factor.
Load

Fig. 2: Block diagram of proposed power factor Fig. 3: Flow chart diagram for current and power factor
correction system. measurement.

LCD display is used for displaying load current and

load power factor. Also, it displays the load voltage and
compensating capacitive current. If there is over current
or under voltage, microcontroller disconnect the load
from the supply using the relay to protect the load and
improve the stability of the system.

3. Current and Power Factor

Measurement

In the Proteus simulation, 100 µf non-polarized capacitor

with low pass filter is used as single capacitor instead
of bank of capacitors. To regulate the compensating
capacitive current, an ac to ac buck converter is used which
constantly switches on /off by a pulse width modulated
(PWM) signal. The flow chart diagram for current and
power factor measurement is shown below Fig. 3.
The circuit diagram for the measurement of current and
power factor is shown in Fig. 4. In this circuit, CT and
PT are used. CT is used to step down the input current
while precision rectifier is used to convert the AC signal
to equivalent DC signal. The DC voltage is measured
by the microcontroller. For the measurement of power
factor, zero crossing detector circuit is used after CT
and PT. Microcontroller takes load current and phase
angle of voltage & current as input. The high frequency
PWM signal is produced by the microcontroller for Fig. 4: Circuit diagram for current and power factor
bidirectional switch whose duty cycle needs to vary. The measurement.

DUET Journal 23 Volume 4, Issue 1, December 2018

 Microcontroller based Power Factor Improvement by using Switched single Capacitor

Fig. 6: Voltage and current waveforms with one

(50+j63) Ω inductive load.

Fig. 7: PWM signal is produced by microcontroller to

attain unity power factor for one (50+j63) Ω inductive
Fig. 5: PWM signal with zero duty cycle without load.
load.

microcontroller uses an algorithm for producing PWM

signal with different duty cycle depending on load current
and power factor.

The circuit is simulated in Proteus at different load

conditions. If there is no load, LCD display will show “NO
LOAD”. When the load is not connected to the system,
the load current is zero, therefore the duty cycle of PWM
signal is zero which is shown in Fig. 5. The inductive loads
(50+j63) Ω, (50+j79) Ω and (50+j47) Ω are connected Fig. 8: Input voltage and current waveforms after power
factor correction.
with the circuit in Proteus software, it provides the load
current, power factor, voltage and current waveform and
also, the PWM signal produced by microcontroller.

After simulation, different loads are assumed for

demonstrating the power factor correction system with the
proposed switched single capacitor.

When an (50+j63) Ω inductive load is connected, there

is a phase difference between current and voltage signals
as shown in Fig. 6. Depending on the load current and
the load power factor, microcontroller changes the duty Fig. 9: Voltage across the shunt capacitor (100µF) was
cycle of the PWM signal to attain unity power factor as 123.16 V (peak).
shown in Fig. 7. The Input voltage and current waveforms
after power factor correction and the voltage across the Microcontroller changes the duty cycle of PWM signal
switched single capacitor are shown in Fig. 8 and Fig. 9 to attain unity power factor as shown in Fig. 11. The
respectively. When three (50+j79) Ω inductive loads are Input voltage and current waveforms after power factor
connected, there is a phase delay between current and correction and voltage across the switched single capacitor
voltage signals as shown in Fig. 10. are shown in Fig. 12 and Fig. 13 respectively.

DUET Journal 24 Volume 4, Issue 1, December 2018

 Microcontroller based Power Factor Improvement by using Switched single Capacitor

When an (50+j47)Ω inductive load is ON, there is a phase

delay in between current and voltage signals as shown in
Fig. 14. The microcontroller changes the duty cycle of
PWM signal to attain unity power factor as shown in Fig.
15. The Input voltage and current waveforms after power
factor correction and voltage across the switched single
capacitor are shown in Fig. 16 and Fig. 17 respectively.

4. Experimental Setup

After getting the suitable results from Proteus simulation,

Fig. 10: Voltage and current waveforms with three
the implementation of the PIC microcontroller based
(50+j79) Ω inductive loads.
automatic power factor correction project is carried out.

Fig. 11: PWM signal is produced by microcontroller to

Fig. 14: Voltage and current waveforms with one
attain unity power factor for three (50+j79) Ω inductive
(50+j47) Ω inductive load.
loads.

Fig. 15: PWM signal is produced by microcontroller to

Fig. 12: Input voltage and current waveforms after
attain unity power factor for one (50+j47) Ω inductive
power factor correction
load

Fig. 16: Input voltage and current waveforms after

Fig. 13: Voltage across the shunt capacitor (100µf) was
power factor correction.
302.60 V (peak).

DUET Journal 25 Volume 4, Issue 1, December 2018

 Microcontroller based Power Factor Improvement by using Switched single Capacitor

Fig. 17: Voltage across the shunt capacitor (100µf) was

126.69 V (peak).

Ahmed and Alam recommended switched single capacitor

method to increase the power factor continuously to unity
which is simulated only assuming various inductive loads
[17]. However, in this research, the overall system for Fig. 19: Practically implemented proposed project in
PFI unit using single switched capacitor is developed working mode.
experimentally.

Fig. 18 shows the circuit implemented in the laboratory

for power factor correction. Fig. 19 shows the practically
implemented power factor improvement circuit under
running condition. The different components of the
practically implemented circuit are shown in Fig. 20.
The implemented power factor correction circuit can be
divided into three sections- i.e. power circuit, display
circuit and control circuit.

Fig. 20: Different components of the current and power

factor measurement circuit.

In the control circuit, high frequency PWM signal is

generated with respect to load current and load power
factor to attain unity power factor. In this circuit, one
opto-coupler is used for generating one isolated gate
signal for driving the IGBT and T section LC low pass
filter for smoothing chopped ac voltage.
This proposed system will incorporate the facility
to monitor the load current, voltage, power factor,
Fig. 18: Circuit implementation of the proposed circuit. compensating capacitive current and protection of load

DUET Journal 26 Volume 4, Issue 1, December 2018

 Microcontroller based Power Factor Improvement by using Switched single Capacitor

against over current and under voltage. The proposed In this case, the loss will be minimized and efficiency of the
scheme facilitates the power factor correction as well system will be increased. The voltage across the capacitor
as provides a protection against under voltage and over varies between 65 V and 216 V where load current varies
current to make the system stable & efficient. in the range of 0.11 A to 0.68 A. Single switch capacitor
used for power factor correction requires less cost, easy
maintenance. After using the single switched capacitor,
5. Experimental Results & Discussion the power factor approximately attains unity which is an
important finding of the proposed research.
The proposed method of improving power factor is found
efficient for lagging loads. In addition, the simulation and 6. Conclusion
the experimental results are showing that the method will
perform better owing to the properties as user friendly, Reactive power compensation is known as a crucial factor
cost-effective and technologically sound. Table 1 shows in the design and operation of any power system. In this
the experimental results of the proposed PFI unit before and paper, a single capacitor is used for PFI which replace
after power factor correction. Table 1 indicates that further the use of bank of capacitors. The proposed system also
varying voltage across the capacitor using PWM signals the omits the use of expensive magnetic contactor required
overall power factor is necessarily improved to unity or near for switching. Therefore, the proposed method will be
about unity. The current is reciprocal to the power factor. more cost effective and robust method of power factor
Thus, when the load current decreases with the increasing improvement of varying inductive loads. Another point
the capacitor voltage, the overall power factor increases. is that, it will reduce the losses due to the high inductive
For various lagging loads, the proposed system attains unity current. Due to compensating capacitor current control,
power factor which is demonstrated in Table 1. the proposed system can maintain unity power factor
The proposed design attains unity power factor for all sleeplessly at all load condition. The proposed approach
load conditions by continuous monitoring of load current of PFI is implemented at the laboratory and tested by
& load power factor. The corresponding PWM signal is varying the load current and load power factor. Although
generated to vary the duty cycle for controlling voltage switching loss is ignored in the proposed project, it will
across the capacitor and thereby compensating the load be the future works to determine the switching loss and
current. And finally, the power factor reaches about unity. the ways to minimize it. Even though, the implemented
project is made only for single phase load, hence in future,
Table 1: Experimental results before and after power it can be implemented for three- phase load. Use of the
factor correction proposed method, can be able to disconnect the load from
Before After Voltage supply during over current and under voltage.
Load Across
Load Resultant Overall
P.F Single
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DUET Journal 27 Volume 4, Issue 1, December 2018

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DUET Journal 28 Volume 4, Issue 1, December 2018

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