A Novel Voltage Balancing Control With dv/dt Reduction for 10-kV SiC MOSFET-Based Medium Voltage Modular Multilevel Converter
- Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)
Using high voltage (HV) silicon carbide (SiC) power semiconductors in a modular multilevel converter (MMC) is promising because it results in fewer submodules and lower switching loss compared to conventional Si based solutions. The nearest level pulsewidth modulation (NL-PWM) is commonly used in the MMC for medium voltage applications. However, with the NL-PWM and existing voltage balancing control, there are many submodules that switch their modes in a control cycle, resulting in a high dv/dt during the deadtime of the power semiconductor, which could be multiple times of the dv/dt of the single device. This poses great challenges on the noise immunity and insulation design in the MMC using HV SiC devices, which have very fast switching speed. A novel voltage balancing control, which ensures only two submodules switch their modes in a control cycle, is proposed in this article, limiting the maximum dv/dt to the dv/dt of a single power semiconductor and also maintaining the voltage balance performance. Furthermore, the proposed voltage balancing control is experimentally validated in a 10-kV SiC mosfet based MMC with four submodules per arm.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC05-00OR22725
- OSTI ID:
- 1777700
- Journal Information:
- IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, Journal Name: IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics Journal Issue: 11 Vol. 35; ISSN 0885-8993
- Publisher:
- IEEECopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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