Commutation Behavior Analysis of a Dual 3L-ANPC-VSC Phase-Leg PEBB Using 4.5-kV and 1.5-kA HV-IGBT Modules

Three-level neutral-point clamped voltage source converter (3L-NPC-VSC) is widely used in high-power and medium-voltage (MV) applications and the most used multilevel VSC topology. 3L-Active-NPC-VSC (3L-ANPC-VSC) was introduced to overcome the unequal losses distribution as main structural drawback of the 3L-NPC-VSC. During the switching event of semiconductor devices, the stray inductance takes a special role in the commutation path of the switching current. Mutual coupling inductance between the components participating in the commutation path has to be considered for a theoretical assessment of the total stray inductance of each commutation path. Besides, the measurement of the commutation path stray inductance has to be carried out during the turn-on of the semiconductor device, instead of during the turn-off, to consider the reverse blocking voltage of the opposite switching semiconductor device. This paper shows how a dual 3L-ANPC-VSC phase-leg has been carefully designed and assembled to build a ±10 MVAr five-level VSC for MV-static synchronous compensator applications. The minimization of the stray inductance, the equalization of the total switching power losses for all commutation paths and power density maximization with snubberless operation are within the main technical design requisites. On the basis of the theoretical analysis, the stray inductance of all the commutation paths has been extracted, considering mutual coupling effect, by means of three-dimensional finite-element-analysis simulations. Once the design concept is theoretically validated, the estimated values have been compared with the experimental results obtained from the performance of double-pulse tests for each commutation path. This paper presents, for the first time, all the analysis details of the 3L-ANPC-VSC commutation behavior using 4.5-kV and 1.5-kA trench high-voltage insulated-gate bipolar transistor modules.