Turbo-MMC: Minimizing the Submodule Capacitor Size in Modular Multilevel Converters with a Matrix Charge Balancer

Yenan Chen, Youssef Elasser, Ping Wang, Jaeil Baek, Minjie Chen

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper presents a Turbo-MMC architecture with a Matrix Charge Balancer (MCB) to minimize the size of the submodule capacitors in modular multilevel converter (MMC) based medium voltage motor drives. The MCB manages the energy in all the submodule capacitors of a standard MMC. It balances the low frequency pulsating power among many MMC submodules and can significantly reduce the submodule capacitor size as well as the voltage ripple. We introduced the operation principles of the Turbo-MMC, and systematically investigated the tradeoffs between the capacitor size reduction and the power conversion stress of the MCB. A distributed phase-shift control strategy was adopted to compress the voltage ripple of the submodule capacitors while maintaining high performance for the MMC. Theoretical analysis and detailed design guidelines for the Turbo-MMC architecture are presented. A scaled-down MMC prototype and a 12-Port MCB have been built and tested to verify the effectiveness of the Turbo-MMC concept.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publication2019 IEEE 20th Workshop on Control and Modeling for Power Electronics, COMPEL 2019
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
ISBN (Electronic)9781728118420
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2019
Event20th IEEE Workshop on Control and Modeling for Power Electronics, COMPEL 2019 - Toronto, Canada
Duration: Jun 17 2019Jun 20 2019

Publication series

Name2019 IEEE 20th Workshop on Control and Modeling for Power Electronics, COMPEL 2019

Conference

Conference20th IEEE Workshop on Control and Modeling for Power Electronics, COMPEL 2019
Country/TerritoryCanada
CityToronto
Period6/17/196/20/19

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Computer Science Applications
  • Energy Engineering and Power Technology
  • Control and Optimization
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering
  • Modeling and Simulation

Keywords

  • multilevel modular converter
  • multiport power converter
  • power decoupling.

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