• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.385-393
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• 2020

This study introduces an analysis and control method for the variation of neutral point current in a grid-tied three-level neutral point clamped (NPC) converter under various grid imbalance operating conditions. Various fault cases with unbalanced amplitude and phase are systematically categorized and described using a unified metric called the imbalance factor. The fundamental component of neutral point current is generated under grid imbalance cases. The pattern and behavior of this fundamental component of neutral point current highly depend on the imbalance factor regardless of the particular type of grid fault cases. The control scheme for regulating the negative sequential component of AC input current effectively reduces the size of the fundamental component of neutral point current under a wide range of grid imbalance cases. The control scheme will enable a grid-tied three-level NPC converter to operate reliably and stably under various types of grid faults.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.1866-1878
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• 2018

This paper presents a neutral point deviation and ripple compensation control method for application to 3-level NPC converters. The neutral point deviation and its harmonic components are analyzed with a focus on the average current flowing through the neutral point of the dc-link. This paper also proposes a control scheme to compensate for the neutral point deviation and dominant harmonic components under generalized unbalanced grid operating conditions. The positive and negative sequence components of the pole voltages and ac input currents are employed to accurately explain the behavior of 3-level NPC converters. Simulation and experimental results are presented to verify the validity of the proposed method.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 1998.11a
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• pp.33-37
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• 1998

For the high power variable speed applications, the DCTLI(diode clamped three-level inverter) have been widely used. This paper describes the analysis of the neutral point current of the DCTLI and the improved space vector-based PWM strategy considering the switching frequency of power devices, that minimizes the fluctuation of the neutral point current in spite of high modulation index region and low power factor. It contributes to decrease the capacitance of dc-link capacitor bank and to increase the neutral point voltage controllable region. Especially, even if second (or even) order harmonic is induced in load current (at this situation, is was investigated that the general control method can not suppress the neutral point voltage variation), this PWM can provide effective control method to suppress the neutral point voltage variation. Various simulation results by means of Matlab/Simulation are presented to verify the proposed PWM.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2015.07a
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• pp.177-178
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• 2015

This paper presents a neutral point deviation compensating control algorithm applied to a 3-level NPC converter. The neutral point deviation is analyzed with a focus on the current flowing out of or into the neutral point of the dc link. Based on the zero sequence components of the reference voltages, this paper analyzes the neutral point deviation and balancing control for 3-level NPC converter. An analytical method is proposed to calculate the injected zero sequence voltage for NP balancing based on average neutral current. This paper also proposes a control scheme compensating for the neutral point deviation under generalized unbalanced grid operating conditions. The positive and negative sequence components of the pole voltages and ac input currents are employed to accurately explain the behavior of 3-level NPC converter. Simulation and experimental results for a test set up of 30kW are shown to verify the validity of the proposed algorithm.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2016.07a
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• pp.151-152
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• 2016

This paper presents a neutral point deviation compensating control algorithm applied to a 3-level NPC converter under generalized unbalanced ac input conditions. The neutral point deviation is analyzed with a focus on the current flowing out of or into the neutral point of the dc-link in 3-level NPC converter. The model of neutral point deviation and neutral current are also constructed. The positive and negative sequence components of the pole voltages and ac input currents are employed to accurately explain the behavior of 3-level NPC converter and its impact on neutral point deviation. This paper includes the harmonic characteristic of neutral point current under various imbalance AC operating conditions.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.407-414
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• 2014

This study proposes a control design for the grid output current and for reducing the neutral-point voltage oscillation through the small-signal modeling of the three-phase grid connected with a three-level neutral-point-clamped (NPC) inverter with LCL filter. The three-level NPC inverter presents an inherent problem: the neutral-point voltage fluctuation caused by the neutral-point current flowing in or out from the neutral point. The small signal modeling consists of averaging, dq0 transformation, perturbing, and linearizing steps performed on a three-phase grid connected to a three-level NPC inverter with LCL filter. The proposed method controls both the grid output and neutral-point currents at every switching period and reduces the neutral-point voltage oscillation. The validity of the proposed method is verified through simulation and experiment.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.344-356
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• 2012

In recent years, multilevel technology has become an effective and practical solution in the field of moderate and high voltage applications. This paper discusses an APF with a three-level NPC inverter. Obviously, the application of such converter to APFs is hindered by the problem of the voltage unbalance of DC capacitors, which leads to system instability. This paper comprehensively analyzes the theoretical limitations of the neutral-point voltage balancing problem for tracking different harmonic currents utilizing current switching functions from the space vector PWM (SVPWM) point of view. The fluctuation of the neutral point caused by the load currents of certain order harmonic frequency is reported and quantified. Furthermore, this paper presents a close-loop digital control algorithm of the DC voltage for this APF. A PI controller regulates the DC voltage in the outer-loop controller. In the current-loop controller, this paper proposes a simple neutral-point voltage control method. The neutral-point voltage imbalance is restrained by selecting small vectors that will move the neutral-point voltage in the direction opposite the direction of the unbalance. The experiment results illustrate that the performance of the proposed approach is satisfactory.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.205-214
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• 2003

This paper proposes a simple control strategy based on the discontinuous PWM (DPWM) to balance the DC-link voltage of three-level neutral-point-clamped (NPC) inverter at low modulation index. It introduces new DPWM methods in multi-level inverter and one of them is used for balancing the DC-link voltage. The current flowing in the neutral point of the DC-link causes the fluctuation of the DC-link voltage of the NPC inverter. The proposed DPWM method changes the path and duration time of the neutral point current, which makes the overall fluctuation of the DC-link voltage zero during a sampling time of the reference voltage vector. Therefore, by using the proposed strategy, the voltage of the DC-link can be balanced fairly well and the voltage ripple of the DC-link is also reduced significantly. Moreover, comparing with conventional methods which have to perform the complicated calculation, the proposed strategy is very simple. The validity of the proposed DPWM method is verified by the experiment.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.1207-1216
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• 2015

In order to suppress the low frequency oscillation of the neutral-point voltage for three-level inverters, this paper proposes a new discontinuous pulse width modulation (DPWM) control method. The conventional sinusoidal pulse width modulation (SPWM) control has no effect on balancing the neutral-point voltage. Based on the basic control principle of DPWM, the relationship between the reference space voltage vector and the neutral-point current is analyzed. The proposed method suppresses the low frequency oscillation of the neutral-point voltage by keeping the switches of a certain phase no switching in one carrier cycle. So the operating time of the positive and negative small vectors is equal. Comparing with the conventional SPWM control method, the proposed DPWM control method suppresses the low frequency oscillation of the neutral-point voltage, decreases the output waveform harmonics, and increases both the output waveform quality and the system efficiency. An experiment has been realized by a neutral-point clamped (NPC) three-level inverter prototype based on STM32F407-CPLD. The experimental results verify the correctness of the theoretical analysis and the effectiveness of the proposed DPWM method.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.445-455
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• 2018

A novel algorithm is proposed to regulate the neutral point potential in neutral point clamped three-level inverters. Oscillations of the neutral point potential and an unbalanced dc-link voltage cause distortions of the output voltage. Large capacitors, which make the application costly and bulky, are needed to eliminate oscillations. Thus, the algorithm proposed in this paper utilizes the finite-control-set model predictive control and the multistage medium vector to solve these issues. The proposed strategy consists of a two-step prediction and a cost function to evaluate the selected multistage medium vector. Unlike the virtual vector method, the multistage medium vector is a mixture of the virtual vector and the original vector. In addition, its amplitude is variable. The neutral point current generated by it can be used to adjust the neutral point potential. When compared with the virtual vector method, the multistage medium vector contributes to decreasing the regulation time when the modulation index is high. The vectors are rearranged to cope with the variable switching frequency of the model predictive control. Simulation and experimental results verify the validity of the proposed strategy.