Journal
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS
Volume 36, Issue 8, Pages 9001-9014Publisher
IEEE-INST ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS INC
DOI: 10.1109/TPEL.2021.3055690
Keywords
Hidden Markov models; Insulated gate bipolar transistors; Capacitors; Topology; Thyristors; Power system measurements; Multilevel converters; Active neutral-point-clamped converter (ANPC); comparison; hybrid modular multilevel converter (HMMC); semiconductor losses
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation [2022397]
- Directorate For Engineering
- Div Of Electrical, Commun & Cyber Sys [2022397] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
Ask authors/readers for more resources
This article introduces the hybrid modular multilevel converter (HMMC) family, which can effectively reduce chain-link voltage, improve power density and efficiency. Compared with traditional MMC topologies, HMMC can save more devices, capacitors, and power losses at different medium voltage levels.
Modular multilevel converter (MMC) has many advantages of scalability, reliability and easy implementation, but suffers from large number of switching devices and capacitors. To improve the power density and efficiency for medium voltage applications, this article introduces a hybrid modular multilevel converter (HMMC) family through the combination of active neutral-point-clamped converter and chain-link arm. Three topologies in HMMC family can effectively reduce chain-link voltage by half compared with traditional MMC. Single- and three-phase operation principles are presented to highlight this important features. Several critical metrics, such as component number, capacitor sizes, and semiconductor losses, are compared between the conventional MMC and HMMC topologies at three different medium voltage levels. The result indicates the best topology from the HMMC family can save around 30% devices, 50% total capacitor and 32% power losses compared with traditional MMC. A simple single-phase control method is also mentioned to balance capacitor voltage. Finally, a single-phase HMMC experimental prototype is built to verify the effectiveness of three topologies.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available