Medium voltage three-level converters for the grid connection of a multi-MW wind turbine

Three-level (3L) neutral point clamped (NPC), flying capacitor (FC), and H-bridge (HB) voltage source converters (VSCs) as a grid-side full-scale medium voltage (MV) converter are modeled, controlled, and simulated for the grid connection of a hypothetical 6MW wind turbine. Via the converter topological features and the simulation results demonstrating the converter performance, these three 3L-VSCs are discussed and compared in terms of power density and reliability, which can be considered as two of the most important criteria for the converters placed in wind turbine nacelles. Given the grid connection circuit (without capacitive switching ripple filters), the 3L-HB-VSC is expected to be superior with respect to power density and reliability over the 3L-NPC- and -FC-VSCs.

[1]  Thierry Meynard,et al.  Multicell converters: basic concepts and industry applications , 2002, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron..

[2]  Zhe Chen,et al.  Design and comparison of full-size converters for large variable-speed wind turbines , 2007, 2007 European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications.

[3]  P.K. Steimer,et al.  6 MVA five-level hybrid converter for windpower , 2008, 2008 IEEE Power Electronics Specialists Conference.

[4]  Hirofumi Akagi,et al.  A New Neutral-Point-Clamped PWM Inverter , 1981, IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications.

[5]  Leon M. Tolbert,et al.  Multilevel converters for large electric drives , 1998, APEC '98 Thirteenth Annual Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition.

[6]  Holmes,et al.  Pulse width modulation for power converters , 2003 .

[7]  B. Andresen,et al.  A high power density converter system for the Gamesa G10x 4,5 MW wind turbine , 2007, 2007 European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications.

[8]  Dushan Boroyevich,et al.  A comprehensive study of neutral-point voltage balancing problem in three-level neutral-point-clamped voltage source PWM inverters , 2000 .

[9]  Bin Wu,et al.  Multilevel Voltage-Source-Converter Topologies for Industrial Medium-Voltage Drives , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics.

[10]  Keith Corzine,et al.  Performance characteristics of a cascaded two-level converter , 1999 .

[11]  Bin Wu,et al.  High-Power Converters and AC Drives , 2006 .

[12]  Leon M. Tolbert,et al.  Multilevel converters for large electric drives , 1999 .

[13]  S. Bernet,et al.  Design and comparison of 4.16 kV neutral point clamped, flying capacitor and series connected H-bridge multi-level converters , 2005, Fourtieth IAS Annual Meeting. Conference Record of the 2005 Industry Applications Conference, 2005..