DC-link Voltage Balance Control Research Articles

A control design for a photovoltaic transformerless HB-NPC inverter with leakage-ground current reduction

A control design for an HB-NPC transformerless inverter is presented in this paper, the proposal includes a modified LCL passive output filter which is aimed to attenuate leakage-ground currents in a transformerless photovoltaic generation system. This modification consists of a simple connection of the filter capacitors to the positive and negative nodes of the DC-link. A theoretical analysis of the differential-mode and common-mode models is performed. Thus, the proposed control law is designed in these new variables of the system. Therefore, the proposed control law consists of two main loops, an inner control loop which is based on the differential-mode model, and a DC-link voltage balance control loop based on the common-mode model. The current tracking loop features a proportional gain plus a bank of resonant filters to enhance the tracking on the differential-mode current reference. The common-mode voltage loop features a PI controller aimed to guarantee the DC-link common-mode voltage regulation objective. To assess the performance of the proposed solution a 1 kW experimental setup of the H-bridge neutral-point clamped transformerless inverter is used with the proposed LCL filter and controller.

DC-link voltage balance control method considering the wide regulation range in SOR for single-phase cascaded H-bridge rectifier

In this paper, a DC-link voltage balance control method that considers the wide regulation range in the steady-state operating region is proposed for a single-phase cascaded H-bridge rectifier. A mathematical model of the DC-link voltage is also established while considering the imbalance caused by the inconsistency of the active power absorbed and consumed by the cell. On the basis of the steady-state operating region of the cascaded H-bridge rectifier, the operating loci of different balance methods are analyzed and a novel balance method is proposed. The DC-link voltage regulation range of the proposed method is then compared with that of two other commonly used methods based on the operating locus in the steady-state operating region. The comparison results show that the proposed method has the widest regulation range in the steady-state operating region wherever the cascaded H-bridge rectifier is operated. The experimental results also verify the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method.

Power and Voltage Control for Single-Phase Cascaded H-Bridge Multilevel Converters under Unbalanced Loads

The conventional control method for a single-phase cascaded H-bridge (CHB) multilevel converter is vector (dq) control; however, dq control requires complicated calculations and additional time delays. This paper presents a novel power control strategy for the CHB multilevel converter. A power-based dc-link voltage balance control is also proposed for unbalanced load conditions. The new control method is designed in a virtual αβ stationary reference frame without coordinate transformation or phase-locked loop (PLL) to avoid the potential issues related to computational complexity. Because only imaginary voltage construction is needed in the proposed control method, the time delay from conventional imaginary current construction can be eliminated. The proposed method can obtain a sinusoidal grid current waveform with unity power factor. Compared with the conventional dq control method, the power control strategy possesses the advantage of a fast dynamic response. The stability of the closed-loop system with the dc-link voltage balance controller is evaluated. Simulation and experimental results are presented to verify the accuracy of the proposed power and voltage control method.

DC-Link Voltage Balance Control in Three-phase Four-wire Active Power Filters

The three-phase four-wire shunt active power filter (APF) is an effective method to solve the harmonic problem in three-phase four-wire power systems. In addition, it has two possible topologies, a four-leg inverter and a three-leg inverter with a split-capacitor. There are some studies investigating DC-link voltage control in three-phase four-wire APFs. However, when compared to the four-leg inverter topology, maintaining the balance between the DC-link upper and lower capacitor voltages becomes a unique problem in the three-leg inverter with a split-capacitor topology, and previous studies seldom pay attention to this fact. In this paper, the influence of the balance between the two DC-link voltages on the compensation performance, and the influence of the voltage balance controller on the compensation performance, are analyzed. To achieve the balance between the two DC-link capacitor voltages, and to avoid the adverse effect the voltage balance controller has on the APF compensation performance, a new DC-link voltage balance control strategy for the three-phase four-wire split-capacitor APF is proposed. Representative simulation and experimental results are presented to verify the analysis and the proposed DC-link voltage balance control strategy.

Application of Transformer-Less UPFC for Interconnecting Two Synchronous AC Grids With Large Phase Difference

In this paper, the application of an innovative transformer-less unified power flow controller (UPFC) for interconnecting two synchronous ac grids with large phase difference is presented. The proposed transformer-less UPFC is based on two cascaded multilevel inverters. As is well known, the real power flow between two generators is mainly determined by their phase difference. If two grids with large phase difference are initially separate from each other, once connected, there will be huge current flowing through the transmission line and will, thus, damage the generators or other supplementary equipments. Therefore, to connect two synchronous ac grids with each other without using an extra device is impossible. For decades, researchers have been investigating different approaches to this problem but still difficult to conquer, especially for real hardware implementation. An effective solution using the transformer-less UPFC is demonstrated in this paper. The transformer-less UPFC can realize grid interconnection, independent active and reactive power control, dc-link voltage balance control, etc. Furthermore, a 1-pu equipment can compensate system with phase difference as large as 30°. Experimental results based on the 13.8-kV/ 2-MVA transformer-less UPFC prototype are shown to validate the theoretical analysis.

Modulation and Control of Transformerless UPFC

In this paper, a modulation and control method for the new transformerless unified power flow controller (UPFC) is presented. As is well known, the conventional UPFC that consists of two back-to-back inverters requires bulky and often complicated zigzag transformers for isolation and reaching high power rating with desired voltage waveforms. To overcome this problem, a completely transformerless UPFC based on an innovative configuration of two cascade multilevel inverters has been proposed. The new UPFC offers several advantages over the traditional technology, such as transformerless, light weight, high efficiency, low cost and fast dynamic response. This paper focuses on the modulation and control for this new transformerless UPFC, including optimized fundamental frequency modulation for low total harmonic distortion and high efficiency, independent active and reactive power control over the transmission line, dc-link voltage balance control, etc. The new UPFC with proposed control method is verified by experiments based on 4160-V test setup. Both the steady-state and dynamic-response results will be shown in this paper.

A Novel Carrier-Based PWM Method for Vienna Rectifier With a Variable Power Factor

The Vienna rectifier, which is a nongenerative-boost type rectifier, is used in many applications such as telecommunication systems and wind turbine systems. The Vienna rectifier has a special operating requirement. Many switching methods considering this requirement were proposed. These methods generally take into account the Vienna rectifier's operation with the unity power factor because the Vienna rectifier aims to provide the power to the load. However, as the applications for the Vienna rectifier are diversified, control requirements have been suggested, including the dc-link voltage balance control and the novel control under severely unbalanced grids. In this paper, we propose a carrier-based pulse-width modulation (CB-PWM) method for Vienna rectifier operation with a variable power factor. The proposed CB-PWM method adds the compensation voltage to the three-phase reference voltages, depending on the power factor, to maintain the sinusoidal input currents of the Vienna rectifier. The performance and effectiveness of the proposed CB-PWM method are verified by simulation and experiment.

Implementation of a Four-Pole Dead-Time-Compensated Neutral-Point-Clamped Three-Phase Inverter With Low Common-Mode Voltage Output

This paper describes the implementation of a four-pole neutral-point-clamped (NPC) three-phase inverter that produces virtually no common-mode voltage. The low common-mode voltage output is achieved by constraining the switch states of the NPC inverter to only those states that produce zero common-mode voltage in dead-time compensation, which enhances the capability of the circuit to produce low common-mode voltage by compensating common-mode voltages produced by reverse diode commutations. The low common-mode voltage performance is achieved at the expense of reduced voltage utilization and loss of DC-link voltage balance control. In order to overcome this limitation, a fourth pole and associated control are added to balance the upper and lower dc-link voltages. This paper describes the control implementations and simulation results compared to measured results used in tuning and commissioning of the system. A 450-V 78-kW system is implemented in hardware, and experimental results are provided, showing its differential mode transient and steady-state harmonic performance as well as its common-mode output voltage.