Implementation of hardware-in-loop for DC-link voltage balancing in hybrid ac/dc microgrid using interlinking converter

Bipolar hybrid ac/dc microgrid (MG) controls a DC and AC bus at the same time, supplies local loads with local resources, and offers multiple levels of dc voltages to resources and services. The applications are getting more popular in power systems. Due to its vital tasks in numerous applications, the interlinking converter (ILC) is an utmost crucial portion of the MG system. From this study, a 10-switch converter is provided as an ILC for a hybrid MG, which gains from both two-level (2L) and three-level (3L) converters at the same time, and it can be used to a wider range of power levels. This work provides a space vector modulation (SVM) for a 10-switch converter to maximize dc-link voltage consumption and minimize total harmonic distortion (THD) compared with other modulation techniques. The behaviour of the suggested SVM is compared with that of sinusoidal PWM. The suggested SVM was evaluated using OPAL-RT to show that it used DC bus voltage more reliably and produced significantly less THD than existing techniques. Furthermore, grid-tied ILC's architecture is improved to reduce low-order harmonics and used for dc-link voltage balancing. A real-time (RT) digital simulator (OP-5700) was used to test the inverter control technique. In MG, this hardware-in-the-loop simulation provides an excellent environment for designing and verifying system-level control algorithms. Simulations were run in a MATLAB/Simulink environment and confirmed using an RT simulator to validate the feasibility of the suggested topology.

Automated summary

This study presents a 10-switch converter as an interlinking converter for a bipolar hybrid ac/dc microgrid (MG). The converter utilizes a space vector modulation technique to maximize the utilization of dc-link voltage and minimize total harmonic distortion (THD). Furthermore, the architecture of the grid-tied interlinking converter is improved to reduce low-order harmonics and balance the dc-link voltage. The results show that the proposed technique provides more reliable utilization of the dc bus voltage and significantly less THD compared to existing techniques.