Cost analysis of three phase PFCs and selection of the cost-effective PFC for a specified power level

Power factor correction (PFC) circuits play an important role in improving the power quality of switched mode power converters including motor drives. Also, several standards necessitate the use of PFCs by mandating the harmonic content of the input current drawn by the electrical equipment. PFCs come in a vast variety of topologies having single, dual and multiple switch configurations, which creates difficulty for the designer in selecting the topology for a specific application. For instance, a multi-switch PFC topology might not be a cost-effective solution for a 3kW application. Also, it might appear that the topologies with more switches will be costlier and thus not cost effective. But when compared thoroughly, the cost difference between these topologies is negligible for some power levels. Also, the comparison shows that for higher power applications, the topologies with many switches seem the more cost-effective solution. Hence a proper cost analysis is required among the various PFC topologies to choose the cost-effective solution. This paper investigates different available power factor correction topologies and determines the cost-effective power factor correction solution for electrical equipment of different power ranges.