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The three-phase dual active bridge (3ph-DAB) converter is a promising topology attracting increasing attention. However, because it is limited to symmetrical three-phase bridge control, the conventional single-phase-shift control method (SPS) remains the most common method for 3ph-DAB converter. The obvious shortcomings of SPS control include the soft-switching failure, massive circulating energy, and high root-mean-square (rms) current value at the light load, particularly with large voltage variation-ratio conditions. To overcome these drawbacks, this article proposes a novel asymmetrical phase shift (APS) control strategy. Unlike other optimized modulation schemes, this optimized strategy breaks the symmetrical control rules of three-phase bridges by introducing variable phase-shift angles among three-phase legs. The novel APS control strategy can substantially reduce the current's rms value and extend the soft-switching operation range due to these additional phase-shift angles. Further, the analytical solutions for the optimal phase-shift angles are derived by solving the global optimal condition equations. Analytical solutions, compared with complex numerical solutions derived by other optimized schemes, can be easily adopted in digital implementation and perform well under changing parameter conditions. Finally, experimental results verify the outstanding performance of the proposed modulation strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The medium voltage stage of solid state transformer (SST), as a grid-connected converter, is required to generate a negative-sequence (NS) current under certain conditions. Unfortunately, this NS current increases the arm current stress, which limits the operating range of the SST. This article proposes the concept of using a zero-sequence (ZS) current to reduce such a current stress in △-connected SST with a low voltage direct current port (SST+LVdc). An algorithm to determine the optimized ZS current is derived on basis of geometric and logic·. The theoretical analysis and the proposed control algorithm are verified by both simulation and experimental results. The proposed control method gives the △-connected SST+LVdc an advantage over the Y-connected SST+LVdc because it can only work on the △-connected cascaded H-bridge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article first analyzes the effect of the level-increased nearest level modulation (NLM) to the circulating current of the modular multilevel converter (MMC). The total inserted submodule (SM) number in one phase-leg of the MMC is variable using the level-increased NLM, which can significantly increase the peak-to-peak value of the circulating harmonic currents. Then, a circulating harmonic currents suppression method is proposed by applying deadbeat control for the MMC with level-increased NLM. Compared with the existing direct circulating current control approaches for the MMC, the proposed method presents specific extension and adjustment principle of the total inserted SM number. Therefore, the proposed method can improve the dynamic control performance and handle large circulating harmonic currents at steady state. And it can well coordinate the modulation and circulating harmonic currents suppression stages to avoid disturbing the ac-side output voltage while regulating the circulating current. The effectiveness of the proposed method is evaluated by a single-phase industrial-level simulated MMC system and a laboratory experimental platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The power electronic transformer (PET) or solid-state transformer (SST) is a key technique in the future distribution grid. One of PET's future possible application is the soft normally open points (SNOP) to handle the power and voltage challenge brought by the renewable energy sources. In this paper, a PET-based three-terminal medium-voltage SNOP topology is proposed. The topology consists of three cascade H-bridge (CHB) stages and a multiactive bridge (MAB) stage. The dc voltage control strategy for the proposed PET-SNOP is studied. Two strategies – the CHB+CHB+CHB strategy and CHB+MAB strategies are developed from the existing strategies but they both have some drawbacks. In order to overcome the drawbacks, a novel dc voltage control strategy—CHB×3+MAB strategy is proposed, which combines the advantages and avoids the drawbacks of these two strategies, moreover, it also brings more flexibility and robustness to the dc voltage control. The effectiveness of the proposed PET-SNOP topology as well as the proposed CHB×3+MAB dc voltage control strategy is verified by both simulation and experiment results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The solid-state transformer (SST) has the ability to operate with only two input phases, which can be called single-phase open-circuit (SPO) operation. With this ability, the SST can maintain operation under permanent single-phase-to-ground faults, where the fault phase must be isolated, providing a better power supply sustainability than that of the conventional low-frequency transformer. In the absence of research on the SPO operation of an SST, this paper presents a study of it. The influence of SPO operation on the grid and the SST itself is analyzed. Under the SPO state, the SST will inject the negative-sequence current to the grid; meanwhile, the maximum load power will decline; thus, the optimized power factor under the SPO state is unity. The maximum power of △-SST is higher than that of the Y-SST under the SPO state owing to the △ connection. A control strategy for the SST medium-voltage cascaded H-bridge stage is proposed. SPO current control can be achieved by controlling the positive-sequence current. A proper negative-sequence voltage can be injected to synchronize the cluster voltages to obtain a lower current total harmonic distortion and smaller dc voltage ripple. In the △-SST, a proper zero-sequence current can be injected to fully use the power rating of the double-cluster branch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is considerable to reduce the computation load while keeping a good total harmonic distortion (THD) performance for the modular multilevel converter (MMC) with model predictive control (MPC). In this paper, the discrete-time mathematical model of the MMC is derived and the output voltage ripples of the cascaded submodules (SMs) are analyzed in detail. Accordingly, a modified increased-level MPC method A (IL-MPC-A) is proposed with 2N + 1 ac-side output voltage levels. The computation load is significantly reduced without losing the harmonic circulating currents suppression and capacitor voltage ripples compensation capabilities. In this method, the cost function minimization step and capacitor voltage sorting algorithm are combined to determine the optimal control option. In addition, to avoid the selection of weighting factors and further reduce the computation load as the increasing of the SM number, another modified IL-MPC-B is proposed by directly calculating the optimal ac-side output voltage level and arm summation voltage according to the discrete-time mathematical model. As a result, the ac-side output current and circulating current controls are decoupled. Furthermore, the capacitor voltages are balanced with a proposed control scheme by adjusting the circulating current reference. The effectiveness of the proposed MPC methods is verified by simulation and experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The grounding of low-frequency distribution transformers is a critical concern that ensures the proper operation and protection of the distribution system. The power electronic transformer (PET), as a future alternative low-frequency distribution transformer, also needs grounding. This paper studies PET operation with arc-suppression-coil (ASC) grounding in the Y-connected medium-voltage (MV) stage, focusing on the following two aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared with conventional power transformer, the power electronic transformer (PET) or solid-state transformer has many attractive additional features. This paper focuses on an H-bridge-based three-phase three-stage modular PET, which consists of an input stage with series-connected H-bridge converters, an isolation stage with several independent dual-active-bridge converters, and an output stage with parallel-connected H-bridge converters. This PET suffers dc-link capacitor voltage unbalancing issue, and the parallel-connected module current unbalancing sharing issue. In this paper, a system control structure is proposed for the PET to deal with these issues. Different input-stage individual module dc-link voltage balancing control methods are analyzed and compared. It is found that the one implemented by directly trimming module output voltage amplitude is most suitable for PET. Moreover, a downscaled laboratory prototype is designed, built, and tested to verify the control strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]