Experimental validation of a nested control system to balance the cell capacitor voltages in hybrid MMCs

 

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Autores: Donoso Urrutia, Felipe Ignacio, Cárdenas Dobson, Jesús Roberto Pedro Alejandro, Espinoza Bolaños, Mauricio, Clare, Jon C., Mora Castro, Andrés Felipe, Watson, Alan J.
Formato: artículo original
Fecha de Publicación:2021
Descripción:In a hybrid modular multilevel converter (MMC), capacitor voltage balance between the Full-Bridge Sub-Modules (FBSMs) and Half-Bridge Sub-Modules (HBSMs) is only possible when the arm currents are bipolar. For a grid-connected MMC, operating at unity power factor, this is typically only achievable when the modulation index is less than 2. Previous control methodologies, based on open-loop feed-forward compensating currents, have been proposed to operate an MMC with a higher modulation index. However, these solutions do not minimize the compensating currents; they cannot compensate entirely for both the variations in the operating conditions and the parameters typically encountered in a real implementation; and they do not consider the actual capacitor voltage imbalance between the FBSM and HBSMs. In this paper, a new nested closed-loop control algorithm based on an outer voltage control loop with an inner current loop is proposed and experimentally validated. Feed-forward currents are still utilised in the inner loop, but they are calculated using a new optimising algorithm which minimises the required compensating currents. Moreover, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first work where explicit algebraic equations to calculate these compensating currents are provided. Experimental results to validate the approach, obtained with an 18-cell hybrid MMC, are presented and discussed in the paper.
País:Kérwá
Institución:Universidad de Costa Rica
Repositorio:Kérwá
Lenguaje:Inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:kerwa.ucr.ac.cr:10669/100082
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10669/100082
https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3054340
Palabra clave:Modular multilevel converters
hybrid MMC
sub-module capacitor balance
Voltage control
Capacitors
Switches
Modulation
Control systems
Mathematical model
Multilevel converters