The HVDC system has many significant benefits and is widely used around the world. The protection of HVDC system is always an issue, which should be solved. This paper presents the working principle of different protection schemes. The advantages and disadvantages of these protection schemes are also introduced. In order to solve the HVDC fault, two protection strategies are proposed. One design focusses on the topologies of the HVDC breaker in the HVDC line, such as all-solid HVDC breaker, resonant HVDC breaker, and hybrid HVDC breaker. The other design is from the viewpoint of converter topology, which has two types. One type generates the counter-emf in arms, such as full bridge MMC, hybrid MMC, and clamp-double MMC. The other type cuts off the current path from the AC side to the DC side, which is also introduced in this paper. Some performances of these topologies are compared, such as switching time and efficiency.
One of the emerging research topics in the propulsion drive of the electric vehicles is the improvement in the efficiency of its component parts, namely, the propulsion motor and the associated inverter. This paper is focused on the efficiency of the inverter and analyzes the improvement that follows from the replacement of the silicon (Si) IGBT devices with silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFETs. To this end, the paper starts by deriving the voltage-current solicitations of the inverter over the working torque-speed plane of the propulsion motor. Then, a proper model of the power losses in the inverter over a supply period of the motor is formulated for the two types of device, including the integrated freewheeling diode. By putting together the voltage-current solicitations and the device power losses, the efficiency maps of the Si IGBT and SiC MOSFET inverters are calculated and compared over the torque-speed plane. The results for the Si IGBT inverter are supported by measurements executed on a marketed C-segment compact electric car, while the SiC MOSFET loss model is validated by an on-purpose built test bench. Finally, the overall efficiency of the propulsion drive is calculated by accounting for the motor efficiency. Main outcomes of the paper is a quantitative evaluation of both the improvement in the efficiency achievable with the SiC MOSFETs and the ensuing increase in the electric car range.
This paper presents the experimental verification of a 2 kW battery energy storage system (BESS). The BESS comprises a full-bridge bidirectional isolated dc-dc converter and a PWM converter that is intended for integration with a photovoltaic (PV) generator, resulting in leveling of the intermittent output power from the PV generator at the utility side. A phase-shift controller is also employed to manage the charging and discharging operations of the BESS based on PV output power and battery voltage. Moreover, a current controller that uses the d-q synchronous reference frame is proposed to regulate the dc voltage at the high-voltage side (HVS) to ensure that the voltage ratio of the HVS with low-voltage side (LVS) is equivalent to the transformer turns ratio. The proposed controllers allow fast response to changes in real power requirements and results in unity power factor current injection at the utility side. In addition, the efficient active power injection is achieved as the switching losses are minimized. The peak efficiency of the bidirectional isolated dc-dc converter is measured up to 95.4% during battery charging and 95.1% for battery discharging.
The tracking of the maximum power point (MPP) of a photovoltaic (PV) solar panel is an important part of a PV generation chain. In order to track maximum power from the solar arrays, it is necessary to control the output impedance of the PV panel, so that the circuit can be operated at its Maximum Power Point (MPP), despite the unavoidable changes in the climate conditions such as temperature and Irradiance. A new MPPT analog technique to track the Maximum Power Point (MPP) of PV arrays is proposed. This new technique uses simple and classical functions of electronic circuits. An Off-Grid PV system was considered to apply and validate the proposed new technique. The entire circuit was implemented in circuit-oriented simulator Proteus-ISIS. We present the results associated with the design, the realization, and the experimentation of a PV system equipped with a new analog MPPT command. The obtained results have shown good efficiency of analog technique (more than 98.5%). The second part of the paper consists of the description of the design and the realization of the novel analog MPPT integrated chip. The integrated circuit (IC) was designed and realized using HV CMOS technology 0.35-µm.
High-voltage converter employing IGCT switches (VDC=2800 V) for traction application is presented. Such a power traction drive operates with an unstable input voltage over 2000⋯4000 V DC and with an output power up to 1200 kW. The original power circuit of the high-voltage converter is demonstrated. Development of the attractive approach to designing the low-loss snubber circuits of the high-frequency IGCT switches is proposed. It is established on the complex multilevel analysis of the transient phenomena and power losses. The essential characteristics of the critical parameters under transient modes and the relation between the snubber circuit parameters and the losses are discussed. Experimental results for the prototype demonstrate the properties of new power circuit. The test results confirm the proposed high-voltage converter performance capability as well as verifying the suitability of the conception for its use in the Russian suburban train power system and other high-voltage applications.
In switch-mode power converters with large ratings, it is important to be able to predict the parasitic resistances associated with circuit elements such as electrolytic capacitor and filter inductor in the initial converter design stage itself to avoid the cost and time associated with actual design, prototype fabrication, and testing of these components. Knowing the values of parasitic elements is also important as they decide the possibility of closed-loop instability, besides affecting the other circuit parameters. In this paper, a way to estimate the equivalent series resistance of electrolytic capacitor and the winding resistance of filter inductor is proposed leading to their closed form expressions in terms of system parameters. Using these, procedure to predict the closed-loop instability induced due to the input filter is exemplified with illustrative calculations.
This paper presents a simple Space Vector Modulation (SVM) methodology for a three-level NPC converter. Nearest three vectors (NTV) and corresponding duty cycles are deduced through simple generic mathematical expressions. Extra degrees of freedom of NPC converter are used to fully benefit from SVM advantages and to control the switching frequency. Simulation and experimental results are presented and discussed to validate the proposed methodology.
In a low-voltage islanded microgrid powered by renewable energy sources, the energy storage systems (ESSs) are considered necessary, in order to maintain the power balance. Since a microgrid can be composed of several distributed ESSs (DESSs), a coordinated control of their state-of-charge (SoC) should be implemented, ensuring the prolonged lifespan. This paper proposes a new decentralized control method for balancing the SoC of DESSs in islanded microgrids, without physical communication. Each DESS injects a current distortion at 175 Hz, when its SoC changes by 10%. This distortion is recognized by every DESS, through a phase-locked loop (PLL). In order to distinguish the origin of the distortion, each DESS injects a distortion of different time duration. This intermediate frequency has been selected in order to avoid the concurrence with the usual harmonics. The DESSs take advantage of this information and inject a current proportional to the SoC. Implementing this strategy, a comparable number of charging/discharging cycles for each DESS are achieved. Furthermore, an active filter operation, implemented in the dq rotating frame for each individual harmonic, is integrated in the control of the distributed generation units, supplying nonlinear loads with high-quality voltage. The effectiveness of this method is verified by detailed simulation results.
Nowadays, due to excellent advantages of permanent magnet brushless (PMBL) motors such as high efficiency and high torque/power density, they are used in many industrial and variable-speed electrical drives applications. If the fabricated PMBL motor has neither ideal sinusoidal nor ideal trapezoidal back-EMF voltages, it is named nonideal (or nonsinusoidal) PMBL motor. Employing conventional control strategies of PMSMs and BLDCMs lowers the efficiency and leads to unwanted torque ripple, vibration, and acoustic noises. Moreover, in many applications to reduce the cost and enhance the reliability of drive, sensorless control techniques are used. This paper proposes a novel sensorless control for a nonsinusoidal PMBL motor with minimum torque ripple. To develop smooth torque, the selected torque harmonic elimination strategy is employed. Furthermore, to estimate the rotor position and speed, a novel full-order sliding mode observer is designed. Proposed observer estimates the position and speed of motor from standstill to final speed. The proposed observer is robust to uncertainty of harmonic contents in phase back-EMF voltage and able to run the motor from standstill with closed-loop control scheme. The capabilities of torque ripple minimization and sensorless strategies are demonstrated with some simulations.
This paper proposes an improved multiloop control strategy for a three-phase four-leg voltage source inverter (VSI) operating with highly unbalanced loads in an autonomous distribution network. The main objective is to balance the output voltages of the four-leg inverter under unbalanced load conditions. The proposed control strategy consists of a proportional-integral (PI) voltage controller and a proportional current loop in each phase. The voltage controller and the current control loop are, respectively, used to regulate the instantaneous output voltage and generate the pulse width modulation (PWM) voltage command with zero steady-state tracking error and fast transient response. A voltage decoupling feedforward path is also used to enhance the system robustness. Since the outer voltage loop operates in the synchronous reference frame, tuning and stability analysis of the PI controller is far from being straightforward. In order to cope with this challenge, the stationary reference frame equivalent of the voltage controller in the rotating frame is derived. Subsequently, a systematic design based on a frequency response approach is provided. Simulation results are also carried out using the DIgSILENT PowerFactory software to verify the effectiveness of the suggested control strategy.
The RC ladder network has been analyzed for various catastrophic fault detection using minimal number of measurements. Generally, electronic circuit testing procedure is very exhaustive and includes higher cost; the presented approach will save fault diagnosis time. It is not possible to analyze the big RC ladder network to give the good fault coverage, so the ladder network has been broken into segments of different sizes. However, if segment size is small, it will cause more area overhead compared to bigger step size in terms of the interconnections and pins on the integrated circuit. A systematic and detailed analysis for one-step, two-step, three-step, and four-step RC ladder networks has been carried out for various faults and optimal step size is proposed. It has been investigated that three measurements are optimal to localize different catastrophic faults in a RC ladder network.
The drop in DC-link voltage of adjustable speed drives (ASD) occurs mainly due to the increase in output power demands. This may lead to inefficient operation and eventually the tripping of the drive. This paper presents a Double Space Vector Pulse Width Modulation (DSVPWM) technique for boosting and compensating the DC-link voltage of Z-source inverter (ZSI). The DSVPWM technique estimates the required shoot through period of the Z-source inverter to maintain the DC-link voltage constant at the desired level through capacitor voltage control. The DSVPWM can obtain maximum boost at any given modulation index in comparison to simple boost control (SBC) method. It also utilizes the dead time more effectively. The speed control of the ZSI fed induction motor drive is done by employing indirect field-oriented (IFO) control method. A 32-bit DSP (TMS320F28335) is used to implement the IFOC-DSVPWM method for ZSI. The power structure and the modulation technique are well suited for electric vehicle application.
Electric traction uses three phase locomotives in main line services. Three phase locomotives consist of voltage source inverters for driving the traction motors. This paper proposes a hybrid algorithm for bidirectional Z-source inverters in accelerating region of operation of locomotives. The speed control method adopted is same as that in the existing three phase locomotives which is variable voltage variable frequency. Bidirectional Z-source inverter is designed for getting the same output power as in voltage source inverter fed locomotives. Simulation is done in all regions of traction speed curve, namely, acceleration, free running, and braking by regeneration. The voltage stress across the devices and modulation index are considered while analyzing the proposed control algorithm. It is found that the modulation index remains at a high value over the entire range of frequencies. Due to the higher value of modulation index the harmonics in the inverter output voltage is reduced. Also the voltage stress across devices is limited to a value below the device rating used in the present three phase locomotives. A small scale prototype of the bi-directional Z-source inverter fed drive is developed in the laboratory and the hybrid control was verified in the control topology.
The accuracy of the lifetime calculation approach of IGBT power modules used in hybrid-electric powertrains suffers greatly from the inaccurate knowledge of application typical load-profiles. To verify the theoretical load-profiles with data from the field this paper presents a concept to record all junction temperature cycles of an IGBT power module during its operation in a test vehicle. For this purpose the IGBT junction temperature is measured with a modified gate driver that determines the temperature sensitive IGBT internal gate resistor by superimposing the negative gate voltage with a high-frequency identification signal. An integrated control unit manages theTJmeasurement during the regular switching operation, the exchange of data with the system controller, and the automatic calibration of the sensor system. To calculate and store temperature cycles on a microcontroller an online Rainflow counting algorithm was developed. The special feature of this algorithm is a very accurate extraction of lifetime relevant information with a significantly reduced calculation and storage effort. Until now the recording concept could be realized and tested within a laboratory voltage source inverter. Currently the IGBT driver with integrated junction temperature measurement and the online cycle recording algorithm is integrated in the voltage source inverter of first test vehicles. Such research will provide representative load-profiles to verify and optimize the theoretical load-profiles used in today’s lifetime calculation.
In many photovoltaic (PV) energy conversion systems, nonisolated DC-DC converters with high voltage gain are desired. The PV exhibits a nonlinear power characteristic which greatly depends on the environmental conditions. Hence in order to draw maximum available power various algorithms are used with PV voltage/current or both as an input for the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) controller. In this paper, golden section search (GSS) based MPPT control and its application with three-level DC-DC boost converter for MPPT are demonstrated. The three-level boost converter provides the high voltage transfer which enables the high power PV system to work with low size inductors with high efficiency. The balancing of the voltage across the two capacitors of the converter and MPPT is achieved using a simple duty cycle based voltage controller. Detailed simulation of three-level DC-DC converter topology with GSS algorithm is carried out in MATLAB/SIMULINK platform. The validation of the proposed system is done by the experiments carried out on hardware prototype of 100 W converter with low cost AT’mega328 controller as a core controller. From the results, the proposed system suits as one of the solutions for PV based generation system and the experimental results show high performance, such as a conversion efficiency of 94%.
A current source converter (CSC) based static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) is a shunt flexible AC transmission system (FACTS) device, which has a vital role as a stability support for small and large transient instability in an interconnected power network. This paper investigates the impact of a novel and robust pole-shifting controller for CSC-STATCOM to improve the transient stability of the multimachine power system. The proposed algorithm utilizes CSC based STATCOM to supply reactive power to the test system to maintain the transient stability in the event of severe contingency. Firstly, modeling and pole-shifting controller design for CSC based STATCOM are stated. After that, we show the impact of the proposed method in the multimachine power system with different disturbances. Here, applicability of the proposed scheme is demonstrated through simulation in MATLAB and the simulation results show an improvement in the transient stability of multimachine power system with CSC-STATCOM. Also clearly shown, the robustness and effectiveness of CSC-STATCOM are better rather than other shunt FACTS devices (SVC and VSC-STATCOM) by comparing the results in this paper.
Compared with AC-DC-AC converter, matrix converter (MC) has several advantages for its bidirectional power flow, controllable power factor, and the absence of large energy storage in dc-link. The topology of MC includes direct matrix converter (DMC) and indirect matrix converter (IMC). IMC has received great attention worldwide because of its easy implementation and safe commutation. Space vector PWM (SVM) algorithm for indirect matrix converter is realized on DSP and CPLD platform in this paper. The control of the rectifier and inverter in IMC can be decoupled because of the intermediate dc-link. The space vector modulation scheme for IMC is discussed and the PWM sequences for the rectifier and inverter are generated. And a two-step commutation of zero current switching (ZCS) in the rectifier is achieved. Input power factor of IMC can be changed by adjusting the angle of the reference current vector. Experimental tests have been conducted on a RB-IGBT based indirect matrix converter prototype. The results verify the performance of the SVM algorithm and the ability of power factor correction.
This paper proposes a simple, accurate, and easy to model approach for the simulation of photovoltaic (PV) array and also provides a comparative analysis of the same with two other widely used models. It is highly imperative that the maximum power point (MPP) is achieved effectively and thus a simple and robust mathematical model is necessary that poses less mathematical complexity as well as low data storage requirement, in which the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithm can be realized in an effective way. Further, the resemblance of the P-V and I-V curves as obtained on the basis of experimental data should also be taken into account for theoretical validation. In addition, the study incorporates the root mean square deviation (RMSD) from the experimental data, the fill factor (FF), the efficiency of the model, and the time required for simulation. Two models have been used to investigate the I-V and P-V characteristics. Perturb and Observe method has been adopted for MPPT. The MPP tracking is realized using field programmable gate array (FPGA) to prove the effectiveness of the proposed approach. All the systems are modeled and simulated in MATLAB/Simulink environment.
A new and simple but effective electromagnetic interference suppression technique based on field programmable logic array (FPGA) technology to provide a significant EMI noise attenuation in DC-DC converters is discussed. The voltage controlled boost converter for EMI reduction is analyzed using FFT under traditional PWM technique and chaotic mode operation. This technique aids the DC-DC converters to comply in specified EMI limits and replace conventional bulky passive filter with a simple passive filter. A prototype model has been tested and hardware results show significant reduction of EMI in chaotic mode operation of the boost converter.
In PV applications, under mismatching conditions, it is necessary to adopt a maximum power point tracking (MPPT) technique which is able to regulate not only the voltages of the PV modules of the array but also the DC input voltage of the inverter. Such a technique can be considered a hybrid MPPT (HMPPT) technique since it is neither only distributed on the PV modules of the PV array or only centralized at the input of the inverter. In this paper a new HMPPT technique is presented and discussed. Its main advantages are the high MPPT efficiency and the high speed of tracking which are obtained by means of a fast estimate of the optimal values of PV modules voltages and of the input inverter voltage. The new HMPPT technique is compared with simple HMPPT techniques based on the scan of the power versus voltage inverter input characteristic. The theoretical analysis and the results of numerical simulations are widely discussed. Moreover, a laboratory test system, equipped with PV emulators, has been realized and used in order to experimentally validate the proposed technique.
