The power active filter (APF) is used to suppress the harmonics and compensate the reactive power which are produced by the nonlinear loads. The traditional method of the sinusoidal current synthesis (SCS) would deteriorate the distortion level in the common coupling, thus result in the harmonic propagation through the power distribution system. The method of the resistive load synthesis (RLS) can compensate the mains current in phase with the mains voltage in spit of the mains voltage distort or not. The character of the system is a resistive load. The adaptive inverse control is a novel intelligent control method. The adaptive inverse control is used to control the APF to synthesis the resistive load. The whole power distribution system is regarded as a generalized active power filter. The inverse of the plant model is obtained by using an off-line identification technique. The inverse of the model is used to be the controller to control the action of the active power filter so that the output of the voltage of the dc capacitor to follow the reference input. The action of the active power filter makes the system to synthesize a resistive load. The harmonic propagation can be damped out and the harmonics and reactive power can be compensated. The power factor can be corrected to unity. The simulation and experiment results validate the proposed algorithm