Abstract: Direct power control (DPC) is attracting wide attention throughout the world due to its merits of simple structure, quick dynamic response, strong robustness against parameter variations and no need of inner current loop tuning work. The establishment of switching table is the key aspect of DPC and so far there are various switching tables in the literature. However, they differ in the sector division and vector selection and the explanation of switching table establishment is not clear. Hence, it is necessary to give a detailed study of the establishment of switching table and compare the performance of various switching tables. This paper gives a detailed analysis on the mechanism of switching table using mathematical derivation and geometry illustration. Six feasible switching tables are obtained, of which three have been reported in the literature while other three are not. This paper studies two of the six switching tables using simulations and experimental tests. Both methods can achieve decoupled control of active power and reactive power, quick dynamic responses while they are different in steady state performance. The presented simulation and experimental results validate the effectiveness of the theory of switching table establishment.