Power factor compensation using boost rectifier

Most people in the power engineering field have encountered the question about which direction the harmonic power is flowing, from the source to the load or, from the load to the source. While this is still a controversial topic for some people, the most commonly accepted practice for determining this is to look at the harmonic watts phase angle, or the relationship between the voltage and current for a particular harmonic. The presence of harmonics can distorted the supply waveforms and cause problems in respect to firing circuits which rely on the supply voltage zero as reference to the delay firing angle.