Multilevel converters have been under research and development for more than three decades and have found successful industrial application. However, this is still a technology under development, and many new contributions and new commercial topologies have been reported in the last few years. The aim of this paper is to group and review these recent contributions, in order to establish the current state of the art and trends of the technology, to provide readers with a comprehensive and insightful review of where multilevel converter technology stands and is heading. This paper first presents a brief overview of well-established multilevel converters strongly oriented to their current state in industrial applications to then center the discussion on the new converters that have made their way into the industry. In addition, new promising topologies are discussed. Recent advances made in modulation and control of multilevel converters are also addressed. A great part of this paper is devoted to show nontraditional applications powered by multilevel converters and how multilevel converters are becoming an enabling technology in many industrial sectors. Finally, some future trends and challenges in the further development of this technology are discussed to motivate future contributions that address open problems and explore new possibilities.

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Recent Advances and Industrial Applications of Multilevel Converters

Cascaded multilevel inverters synthesize a medium-voltage output based on a series connection of power cells which use standard low-voltage component configurations. This characteristic allows one to achieve high-quality output voltages and input currents and also outstanding availability due to their intrinsic component redundancy. Due to these features, the cascaded multilevel inverter has been recognized as an important alternative in the medium-voltage inverter market. This paper presents a survey of different topologies, control strategies and modulation techniques used by these inverters. Regenerative and advanced topologies are also discussed. Applications where the mentioned features play a key role are shown. Finally, future developments are addressed.

A Survey on Cascaded Multilevel Inverters

This paper gives an overview of medium-voltage (MV) multilevel converters with a focus on achieving minimum harmonic distortion and high efficiency at low switching frequency operation. Increasing the power rating by minimizing switching frequency while still maintaining reasonable power quality is an important requirement and a persistent challenge for the industry. Existing solutions are discussed and analyzed based on their topologies, limitations, and control techniques. As a preferred option for future research and application, an inverter configuration based on three-level building blocks to generate five-level voltage waveforms is suggested. This paper shows that such an inverter may be operated at a very low switching frequency to achieve minimum on-state and dynamic device losses for highly efficient MV drive applications while maintaining low harmonic distortion.

Medium-Voltage Multilevel Converters—State of the Art, Challenges, and Requirements in Industrial Applications

This paper discusses about integrating renewable energy sources into the smart power grid through industrial electronics. This paper discusses photovoltaic power, wind energy conversion, hybrid energy systems, and tidal energy conversion.

Future Energy Systems: Integrating Renewable Energy Sources into the Smart Power Grid Through Industrial Electronics

The solid-state transformer (SST), which has been regarded as one of the 10 most emerging technologies by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Technology Review in 2010, has gained increasing importance in the future power distribution system. This paper presents a systematical technology review essential for the development and application of SST in the distribution system. The state-of-the-art technologies of four critical areas are reviewed, including high-voltage power devices, high-power and high-frequency transformers, ac/ac converter topologies, and applications of SST in the distribution system. In addition, future research directions are presented. It is concluded that the SST is an emerging technology for the future distribution system.

Review of Solid-State Transformer Technologies and Their Application in Power Distribution Systems

The need for power semiconductor devices with high-voltage, high- frequency, and high-temperature operation capability is growing, especially for advanced power conversion and military applications, and hence the size and weight of the power electronic system are reduced. Development of 15-kV SiC IGBTs and their impact on utility applications is discussed.

Smart grid technologies

Multilevel inverters have been widely applied in industries. A family of optimal pulsewidth modulation (PWM) methods for multilevel inverters, such as step modulation, can generate output voltage with less harmonic distortion than popular modulation strategies, such as the carrier-based sinusoidal PWM or the space vector PWM. However, some drawbacks limit the application of optimal PWM. One of such crucial drawback is that the optimal switching angles could not be calculated in real-time and one has to rely on lookup tables with precalculated angles. We propose a novel real-time algorithm for calculating switching angles that minimizes total harmonic distortion (THD) for step modulation. We give a mathematical proof that the output voltage has the minimum THD. We implemented the algorithm on a digital signal processor and provide experimental results that verify the performance of the proposed algorithm.

Real-Time Calculation of Switching Angles Minimizing THD for Multilevel Inverters With Step Modulation

This paper presents a new feedback control strategy for balancing individual DC capacitor voltages in a three-phase cascade multilevel inverter-based static synchronous compensator. The design of the control strategy is based on the detailed small-signal model. The key part of the proposed controller is a compensator to cancel the variation parts in the model. The controller can balance individual DC capacitor voltages when H-bridges run with different switching patterns and have parameter variations. It has two advantages: 1) the controller can work well in all operation modes (the capacitive mode, the inductive mode, and the standby mode) and 2) the impact of the individual DC voltage controller on the voltage quality is small. Simulation results and experimental results verify the performance of the controller.

Small-Signal Model-Based Control Strategy for Balancing Individual DC Capacitor Voltages in Cascade Multilevel Inverter-Based STATCOM

Different modulation methods have been proposed to control the multilevel inverters. This paper focuses on the staircase modulation that is very popular for multilevel inverters with low switching frequencies. Nonreal-time algorithms for the staircase modulation cannot be applied practically in multilevel inverters with varying voltage steps, since the sizes of lookup tables would be huge. We propose a real-time algorithm for multilevel inverters with unequal or varying voltage steps under the staircase modulation. The algorithm results in the minimal total harmonic distortion (THD) of the output voltage of the inverter, which is proved by rigorous mathematical derivations in this paper. A new expression of THD is presented to simplify the derivation significantly. Computational complexity of the algorithm is analyzed to estimate the time cost of the calculation. We implemented the algorithm on a digital signal processor and provide experimental results that verify the performance of the proposed algorithm.

Real-Time Algorithm for Minimizing THD in Multilevel Inverters With Unequal or Varying Voltage Steps Under Staircase Modulation

This paper proposes a trinary hybrid 81-level multilevel inverter for motor drive. Benefiting from the trinary hybrid topology of the inverter, 81-level voltages per phase can be synthesized with the fewest components. Bidirectional DC-DC converters are used not only to inject power to the DC links of the inverter but also to absorb power from some DC links in cases with a lower modulation index. The higher bandwidth of DC-DC converters alleviates the ripples of DC-link voltages caused by the load current. The space vector modulation used here, which selects voltage vectors that generate a zero common-mode voltage in the load, works at a low switching frequency. With up to 81-level voltages per phase, the total harmonic distortion is small, and the relationship between the fundamental load voltage and the modulation index is precisely linear. A vector controller is used to control an induction motor, which results in a high dynamic response for speeds or torques. The performance of the proposed inverter for the motor drive is confirmed by simulation and experiment.

Yu Liu

Papers

Smart grid technologies

Real-Time Calculation of Switching Angles Minimizing THD for Multilevel Inverters With Step Modulation

Small-Signal Model-Based Control Strategy for Balancing Individual DC Capacitor Voltages in Cascade Multilevel Inverter-Based STATCOM

Real-Time Algorithm for Minimizing THD in Multilevel Inverters With Unequal or Varying Voltage Steps Under Staircase Modulation

Trinary Hybrid 81-Level Multilevel Inverter for Motor Drive With Zero Common-Mode Voltage