TY - GEN
T1 - Passive balancing of the DC bus midpoint for Neutral Point Clamped (NPC) based Voltage Source Converters
AU - Laka, Aitor
AU - Barrena, Jon Andoni
AU - Chivite-Zabalza, Javier
AU - Rodriguez, Miguel Angel
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - This paper presents a passive method to balance the voltage of the split capacitors in Neutral Point Clamped (NPC) based Voltage Source Converters (VSC). The voltage of the two capacitors is equated by connecting a low VA transformer at the AC side of the converter. The transformer is connected in wye configuration and its neutral point is connected to the DC side midpoint through a resistance and an inductance. By doing so, it is assured that the mean voltages of the DC side capacitors are balanced. In addition, this method is independent to the load and therefore the balancing is assured under any working point of the converter. The VSC and the balancing circuit have been simulated in the simulation tool Saber and the good performance of the balancing circuit has been validated experimentally in a 6.7KVA test bench.
AB - This paper presents a passive method to balance the voltage of the split capacitors in Neutral Point Clamped (NPC) based Voltage Source Converters (VSC). The voltage of the two capacitors is equated by connecting a low VA transformer at the AC side of the converter. The transformer is connected in wye configuration and its neutral point is connected to the DC side midpoint through a resistance and an inductance. By doing so, it is assured that the mean voltages of the DC side capacitors are balanced. In addition, this method is independent to the load and therefore the balancing is assured under any working point of the converter. The VSC and the balancing circuit have been simulated in the simulation tool Saber and the good performance of the balancing circuit has been validated experimentally in a 6.7KVA test bench.
KW - Neutral Point Clamped
KW - Split Capacitors balancing
KW - Voltage Source Converter
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84893537270&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/IECON.2013.6699294
DO - 10.1109/IECON.2013.6699294
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84893537270
SN - 9781479902248
T3 - IECON Proceedings (Industrial Electronics Conference)
SP - 1148
EP - 1153
BT - Proceedings, IECON 2013 - 39th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society
T2 - 39th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, IECON 2013
Y2 - 10 November 2013 through 14 November 2013
ER -