• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.1486-1495
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• 2019

Dealing with the DC link fault poses a technical problem for an HVDC based on a modular multilevel converter. The fault suppressing mechanisms of several sub-module topologies with DC fault current blocking capacity are examined in this paper. An improved half-bridge sub-module topology with double direction control switch is also designed to address the additional power consumption problem, and a sub-module topology called hybrid double direction blocking sub module (HDDBSM) is proposed. The DC fault suppression characteristics and sub-module capacitor voltage balance problem is also analyzed, and a self-startup method is designed according to the number of capacitors. The simulation model in PSCAD/EMTDC is built to verify the self-startup process and the DC link fault suppression features.