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Since the future grid needs to provide sufficient electrical energy with high quality, it is envisaged that most of the used energy will be supplied by grid-connected voltage source converters (VSCs). The VSCs are used for connecting renewable energy source to the grid, e.g., wind and solar power. The grid-connected VSC considered in this paper is a three-phase three-wire full-bridge converter in which a capacitor is connected to its dc side, while its ac-side is connected to the grid with current control. When operating under unbalanced voltages at the point of common coupling, either due to the presence of unbalanced loads or due to a grid fault condition, a voltage ripple appears at the dc side. The interaction between the VSC dc- side voltage ripple and the VSC ac-side currents is the main focus of this study. In this paper, we analyze the interaction between the VSC dc-side voltage ripple and the VSC ac-side currents under unbalanced voltages. Furthermore, the proposed model is used to determine in which conditions the stability of the VSC ac-side currents can be guaranteed even in the presence of the dc-side voltage ripple. Experimental results confirm that the system remains stable, although with distorted currents due to the dc voltage ripple. Furthermore, it is also shown that the injection of negative sequence currents can decrease the current distortion.

The influence of current and voltage harmonics in the power quality of electrical facilities is currently an important topic in discussion. Considering that in Voltage Source Converter (VSC) applications it is common to utilize resonant controllers to mitigate characteristic current harmonics, this work proposes a methodology to allow the tuning of resonant controllers through a power quality criterion during the design process, enabling the designer to select between harmonic content and stability. The disturbance rejection model that relates the output harmonic currents with the grid voltage harmonics is utilized as basis for the methodology, also providing an analytical calculation of the resonant controller gain according to the imposed harmonic limitations, both for VSCs with regular L as with LCL output filters. Simulations and experiments validate the proposal.