Design and Control Method for Sub-module DC Voltage Ripple of HVDC-MMC

Abstract

-This paper proposes a design and control method for a high-voltage direction current modular multilevel converter (HVDC-MMC) considering the capacitor voltage ripple of the submodule (SM). The capacitor voltage ripple consists of the line frequency and double-line-frequency components. The double line-frequency component does not fluctuate according to the active power, whereas the line-frequency component is highly influenced by the grid-side voltage and current. If the grid voltage drops, a conventional converter increases the current to maintain the active power. A grid voltage drops, current increment, or both occur with a capacitor voltage ripple higher than the limit value. In order to reliably control an MMC within a limit value, the SM capacitor should be designed on the basis of the capacitor voltage ripple. In this paper, the capacitor voltage ripple according to the grid voltage and current are analyzed, and the proposed control method includes a current limitation method considering the capacitor voltage ripple. The proposed design and control method are verified through simulation using PSCAD/EMTDC.