Balancing of submodule capacitor voltage of hybrid modular multilevel converter under DC-Bus voltage variation of HVDC System

Joon Hee Lee, Jae Jung Jung, Seung Ki Sul

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

47 Scopus citations

Abstract

A hybrid modular multilevel converter (MMC) consists of both half-bridge submodule (HBSM) and full-bridge submodule (FBSM) in each arm. It has several advantages over other MMC topologies, such as low system loss, reduced cost of the system, but still maintains fault ride-through capability against a solid dc-side fault. However, the hybrid MMC may have a difficulty of submodule (SM) voltage balancing under variation of its dc-bus voltage. Since the voltage unbalance of SMs results in SM capacitor overvoltage and low reliability of the system, the voltage of SMs, which can be also represented as energy of SMs, should be balanced at all time. In this paper, to extend the narrow adjustable range of dc-bus voltage due to the voltage/energy unbalance, new feedback and feedforward energy balancing controllers with revised sorting algorithm are proposed. The feedback control ensures the zero steady-state error, while the feedforward control provides fast dynamic response in the energy balancing control. By applying the proposed control scheme, the hybrid MMC can keep the voltage balance between HBSMs and FBSMs in wider range of dc-bus voltage. The full-scale computer simulation results and down-scale experimental results demonstrate the validity of the proposed control scheme.

Original languageEnglish
Article number8630082
Pages (from-to)10458-10470
Number of pages13
JournalIEEE Transactions on Power Electronics
Volume34
Issue number11
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2019

Keywords

  • Feedforward control
  • hybrid high voltage direct current (HVDC)
  • hybrid modular multilevel converter (MMC)
  • submodule (SM) balancing

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