Submodule Fault-Tolerant Strategy for Modular Multilevel Converter with Scalable Control Structure

Abstract

Modular Multilevel Converter (MMC) topology is considered a good candidate for high-voltage applications. One of the reasons is that an MMC can quickly generate a higher voltage with an excellent sine wave with the series connection of many power blocks, called Sub-Modules (SMs). In such applications, the control system of an MMC can be challenging, and the possibility of an SM failure increases. As a result, the reliability and availability of the application reduce over time. To reduce the effects of SM failure, an MMC is usually equipped with Redundant SMs (RSMs). The RSMs are added into MMC arms as regular SMs to increase the application’s reliability and reduce downtime. This paper proposes a unique decentralized SM fault-tolerant control model for RSMs to participate in any SM sets. In an MMC arm, a dedicated controller is assigned to RSMs, while the group of SMs has their local controllers. The controller of the RSMs continually monitors the voltage of all the SM sets in the arm. If there is any failure, the controller of the RSMs activates a requested number of SMs to help local controllers to generate the desired voltage level. The proposed control system significantly reduces local controllers’ computational and communication requirements compared to conventional redundant controllers. The proposed control system is based on a distributed structure, so it does not limit hardware flexibility, such as the scalability and modularity of an MMC system. Besides, the separate controller for the RSMs significantly helps increase the reliability of an MMC application.