Investigation on the capacitive characteristics of single-phase diode-bridge converter based loads

The single-phase diode-bridge converter based loads have rapidly proliferated in residential areas nowadays. Since a big capacitor appears in the circuit, the capacitive characteristics of this type of loads are expected. The capacitive loads may cause leading fundamental power factor and resonance issue. The leading power factor impacts the consideration of reactive power compensation, while the possible resonance issue may result in severe power quality problem. Therefore, analyzing and understanding the load characteristics of this type of loads become necessary. This paper presents the investigating results by using theoretical model. The results indicate that this type of loads always show capacitive behavior and the leading phase-angles are concentrated in a narrow range for conventional nonlinear home/office appliances. All results have also been verified by experiments.