• 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 Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.489-500
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• 2014

This paper presents a simple modified unipolar carrier-based pulsewidth modulation (CB-PWM) strategy for the three-level neutral-point-clamped (NPC) voltage source inverter (VSI). Analytical expressions for the relationship between modulation reference signals and output voltages are derived. The proposed modulation technique for the three-level NPC VSI includes the maximum and minimum of the three-phase sinusoidal reference voltages with zero-sequence voltage injection concept. The proposed modified CB-PWM strategy incorporates a novel method that requires only of one triangular carrier wave for generate the gating pulses in three-level NPC VSI. It has the advantages of being simplifying the algorithm with no need of complex two/multi-carrier pulsewidth modulation or space vector modulation (SVM) and it's also simple to implement. The possibility of the proposed CB-PWM technique has been verified though computer simulation and experimental results.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.150-158
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• 2017

This study proposes a new pulse-width modulation switching pattern for the low conduction loss of a three-level neutral point clamped (NPC)-based dual-active bridge (DAB) converter. The operational principle for a bidirectional power conversion is a phase-shift modulation. The conventional switching method of the three-level NPC-based DAB converter shows a symmetric switching pattern. This method has a disadvantage of high root-mean-square (RMS) value of the coupling inductor current, which leads to high conduction loss. The proposed switching method shows an asymmetrical pattern, which can reduce the RMS value of the inductor current with lower conduction loss than that of the conventional method. The performance of the proposed asymmetrical switching method is theoretically analyzed and practically verified using simulation and experiment.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.519-530
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• 2014

A novel simplified pulse width modulation(PWM) strategy for neutral point clamped (NPC) three-level converter is proposed in this paper.The direct output voltage modulation is applied to reduce the calculation time. Based on this strategy, several optimized control methods are proposed. The neutral point potential balancing algorithm is discussed and a fine neutral point potential balancing scheme is introduced. Moreover, the minimum pulse width compensation and switching losses reduction can be easily achieved using this modulation strategy. This strategy also gains good results even with the unequal DC link capacitor. The modulation principle is studied in detail and the validity of this simplified PWM strategy is experimentally verified in this paper. The experiment results indicated that the proposed PWM strategy has excellent performance, and the neutral point potential can be balanced well with unequal DC link captaincies.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.2076-2084
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• 2016

In this paper, a novel scheme to eliminate common-mode voltage (CMV) is proposed for three-level neutral-point clamped (NPC) inverters. In the proposed scheme, a low-power full-bridge converter is utilized to produce compensatory voltage for CMV, which is injected into an NPC inverter through a single-phase four-winding transformer. With the proposed circuit, the power range for applications is not limited, and the maximum modulation index of the inverter is not reduced. These features are suitable for high-power medium-voltage machine drives. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by simulation and experimental results.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.108-118
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• 2019

This paper proposes a DC-link voltage balance controller using the fourth-phase of a three-level neutral-point clamped (NPC) PWM converter with medium vector selection (MVS) PWM for common-mode voltage reduction. MVS PWM makes the voltage reference by synthesizing the voltage vectors that cannot generate common-mode voltage. This PWM method is effective for reducing the EMI noise emitted from converter systems. However, the DC-link voltage imbalance problem is caused by the use of limited voltage vectors. Therefore, in this paper, the effect of MVS PWM on the DC-link voltage of a three-level NPC converter is analyzed. Then a proportional-derivative (PD) controller for the DC-link voltage balance is designed from the DC-link modeling. In addition, feedforward compensation of the neutral point current is included in the proposed PD controller. The effectiveness of the proposed controller is verified by experimental results.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2010.07a
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• pp.434-435
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• 2010

본 논문에서는 배전급 고전압(1kV~7.2kV) 계통 연계가 가능한 새로운 3 병렬 3 레벨 NPC(Neutral-Point-Clamped) 컨버터/인버터 회로방식을 제안한다. 이 회로방식은 정격 용량의 1/3 크기를 가지는 NPC 컨버터/인버터 모듈을 3 병렬로 구성하면서 직류단 캐패시터를 병렬 연결하여 중성점 전위 변동을 저감할 수 있는 특징을 가진다. 제안된 3 병렬 3 레벨 NPC 컨버터/인버터는 기존의 NPC 컨버터의 장점을 가지면서 동시에 용량 확장이 가능하고, 하나의 모듈이 고장 상태가 되더라도 부분 운전이 가능하여 시스템의 신뢰성을 증대시킬 수 있다. 본 논문에서는 제안된 중성점 전압 제어 전략을 실험을 통하여 검증한다. 정밀한 중성점 전압 제어를 위한 중성점 전류 제어 방법이 3병렬 구조에서 안정적으로 동작함을 컴퓨터 모의 실험을 통해 검증한다.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2018.07a
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• pp.316-317
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• 2018

This paper propse the DC link capacitor voltage balancing control for three level neutral point clamped converter with harmonic component injection method. The injcetion voltage consists of harmonic component and DC link capacitor voltage difference. Theoretical analysis is provided to balance the DC link voltage, and it shows that harmonic component compensates the unbalanced condition between the capacitors. Both simulations and experiments are carried out to show that the voltage unbalance have been decreased by the proposed method.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.336-344
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• 2017

This paper presents the three-port DC-DC converter modeling and controller design procedure, which is part of the solid-state transformer (SST) to interface medium voltage AC grid to bipolar DC distribution network. Due to the high primary side DC link voltage, the proposed converter employs the three-level neutral point clamped (NPC) topology at the primary side and 2-two level half bridge circuits for each DC distribution network. For the proposed converter particular structure, this paper conducts modeling the three winding transformer and the power transfer between each port. A decoupling method is adopted to simplify the power transfer model. The voltage controller design procedure is presented. In addition, the output current sharing controller is employed for current balancing between the parallel-connected secondary output ports. The proposed circuit and controller performance are verified by experimental results using a 30 kW prototype SST system.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2015.07a
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• pp.361-362
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• 2015

This paper proposes a Direct Power Control (DPC) scheme of improved command tracking capability for Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generator (PMSG) Medium Voltage (MV) Wind Turbines. Benchmarking is performed based on a neutral point clamped three-level back-to-back type voltage source converter. It is introduced to design the DPC modeling and propose DPC scheme of a three-level NPC (3L-NPC) converter. During the fault condition in wind farms, the proposed control scheme directly controls the generated output power to the command value from the hierarchical wind farm controller. The proposed control scheme is compared with conventional control scheme as respect to loss and thermal analysis. The DPC scheme of improved command tracking capability is confirmed through PLECS simulations. Simulation result shows that proposed control scheme achieves a much shorter transient time in a step response of generated output power. The proposed control scheme makes it possible to provide a good dynamic performance for PMSG MV wind turbine to generate a high quality output power under grid fault condition.