Dynamic behaviour of a back-to-back five-level flying capacitor converter with reduced DC bus capacitance

Abstract

Due to extensive research, advanced voltage source converter (VSC) such as multilevel and multi-module have been proposed for high power applications. These advanced VSCs must provide secure as well as, intelligent power management operation for the future electricity network under various grid events. The focus of this paper is to evaluate the dynamic performance of a back-to-back five-level flying capacitor (FC) converter system with reduced DC bus capacitance under different grid voltage disturbances. The system uses a classical synchronous reference frame control technique for active/reactive power control and DC voltage regulation, and is tested in terms of general grid events such as power flow reversal, voltage amplitude excursions, phase jumps and frequency variations using MATLAB/Simulink and PLECS blockset. The simulation results show that the back-to-back FC converter with reduced DC bus capacitance performs well during the mentioned grid events.