Capacitor Condition Monitoring Based on the DC-Side Start-Up of Modular Multilevel Converters

Zhongxu Wang, Yi Zhang, Huai Wang, Frede Blaabjerg

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    55 Scopus citations

    Abstract

    This letter proposes a new submodule capacitor condition monitoring method for modular multilevel converters (MMCs) based on the dc-side start-up procedure. During this process, the MMC can be simplified into an RC charging circuit, and the submodule capacitance can be estimated by investigating its relationship with the phase current and submodule voltage. Several practical issues related to the implementation, advantages, and limitations of the proposed method are presented as well. In order to validate the method, a series of experiments with different submodule capacitances are conducted based on a three-phase MMC platform. Experimental results confirm the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed method.

    Original languageBritish English
    Article number8918114
    Pages (from-to)5589-5593
    Number of pages5
    JournalIEEE Transactions on Power Electronics
    Volume35
    Issue number6
    DOIs
    StatePublished - Jun 2020

    Keywords

    • Capacitor
    • condition monitoring (CM)
    • modular multilevel converters (MMCs)

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