Space Vector Modulated Cascaded H-Bridge

Multilevel Converter for Grid Integration Of Large

Scale Photovoltaic Power Plants
Ajay Kumar Morya
IIT Bombay,India
ajaymorya@ee.iitb.ac.in
Prof. Anshuman Shukla
IIT Bombay,India
ashukla@ee.iitb.ac.in
Abstract The increasing power rating of large scale grid
connected photovoltaic (PV) power plants has opened new
opportunities for research in the suitable converter and control
techniques considering the existing grid codes. In this paper
,a medium voltage multilevel converter is considered based on
a three-phase cascaded H-bridge (CHB) multilevel converter
and multiple string dc-dc converters. Multilevel converters have
reduced switching frequency, good power quality with less THD
thus reducing lter requirements. The need of several sources
on the dc side of the CHB makes this multilevel technology
attractive for photovoltaic applications. Moreover,the converter
structure is very exible and modular . The main challenge of
this conguration is to handle the power imbalances among
the different cells of one phase of the converter as well as
among the three phases. A control strategy based on space vector
modulation(SVM) to deal with these imbalances is proposed in
this paper. Simulation results of a 5-level CHB for a multistring
PV system in MATLAB/Simulink are presented to prove the
effectiveness of the proposed control method.
Index terms-Cascaded H-bridge inverter ,Grid-connected PV
systems,Maximum power point tracking (MPPT),Multilevel con-
verter,Photovoltaic systems,Renewable energy,Space vector pulse
width modulation.
I. INTRODUCTION
In recent years, interest in electrical power generation
from renewable energy sources, such as photovoltaic (PV)
or wind power systems is increasing because these sources
are environment-friendly and abundant. Grid connected solar
photovoltaic energy conversion system is a leading renewable
energy source considering the installed capacity in the last
10 years [1]. Presently,the centralized topology and the mul-
tistring topology are popular power converter congurations
for high power PV plants[2]. String means a number of PV
modules connected in series.The centralized topology has a
large number of PV modules in series to reach the desired PV
string voltage and then a number of them are connected in
parallel to reach the total power level of the PV system. The
available dc power is interfaced to the grid by a centralized
grid connected inverter. The advantage of this conguration
is that the structure and control are very simple as there is
only one converter so cost is also reduced. But it has some
severe limitations, such as high voltage dc cables are required
between the PV modules and the inverter, power losses due
to a centralized maximum power point tracking(MPPT) and
losses due to mismatch between the PV modules.On the
other hand, the multistring concept [2] ,which is becoming
the state of the art conguration today, has several strings,
each connected to a dedicated dc-dc converter and then to a
common dc-ac inverter. The main advantage of the multistring
concept is modularity which allows combination of different
types of modules. This is advantageous, compared with the
centralized system, since control of each string is independent.
Recently, medium voltage converters have been proposed
for grid connected PV systems [3][4].A three phase CHB
has been presented in [4].A single phase CHB with dc link
balancing control has been presented in [5].In [6], a single
phase CHB with energy balance control for grid connected PV
applications has been presented.A CHB converter based PV-
battery hybrid system for better electromagnetic compatibility
has been presented in [7].The CHB has main advantages for
PV systems: it provides several dc-links to which several PV
strings, each one with independent MPPT, can be connected to
take it to medium voltage level.But there is an inherent power
imbalance among the cells because each H-bridge cell has its
independent PV system whose power points may be different.
This imbalance can cause the dc-link voltages to drift. The
dc-link voltage imbalance deteriorates the power quality as
it causes voltage distortion at the converter output.The most
drastic outcome can be converter failure if voltage limits of
the capacitors are exceeded causing large revenue loss. In three
phase CHB , an additional challenge is to handle imbalance
between the three phases, since each cell has its own MPPT.
This imbalance will lead to unbalanced currents, which is not
allowed by grid codes.
This per cell and per phase imbalance problem has been
tackled in [4] using phase shifted sine triangle PWM. Grid
current balance is achieved by moving the neutral point of
the converter using zero sequence injection in a way that the
phase voltages are unbalanced inversely proportional to the
power unbalance of the converter.For per cell imbalance com-
pensation, the dc-link voltage error V

dc
- V
a1
dc
is regulated with
a PI controller, whose output is used to adjust the amplitude of
the per unit reference signal.Here one PI controller is required
for each cell.
In this paper, a novel method based on space vector
modulation has been proposed to solve the three phase un-
balance and cell unbalance problem in CHB, which is also
978-1-4673-6392-1/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE
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suitable for digital implementation. The conguration and
proposed control system is simulated for a three phase 5 level
CHB.Multilevel converters have many degrees of freedom,
compared with two-level converters: more voltage levels, zero
common-mode voltage vectors and redundant switching states.
Carrier based PWM schemes can not always fully exploit
these advantages.So, signicant research is going on in new
modulation strategies .One of the modulation methods that has
the potential to use these degrees of freedom more effectively
is space vector modulation (SVM)[8].
II. TOPOLOGY DESCRIPTION
A. Working Principle
Fig. 2 shows one phase of 5 level cascaded H-Bridge
conguration.If V is the voltage of dc-link capacitor C
dc
of
each H-Bridge cell, the output of one cell will have three levels
namely +V, 0 and -V. The switch position , the output voltage
and the states of the H-Bridge are given in Table I.Note that S1
and S4 are complementary and S2 and S3 are complementary.
A three level inverter can be realized Using one H-Bridge.
These H-Bridge cells can be connected in cascade to obtain
multilevel cascaded H-Bridge inverter. In a ve level inverter
as shown in Fig. 2, phase voltage will have ve levels, namely
+2V, + V,0, - V and -2 V.
B. Topology
The three phase CHB multilevel PV system conguration is
illustrated in Fig. 1. The power circuit consists of three parts:
the PV strings,the dc-dc converters and the H-bridge cells of
the CHB. Usually commercial CHBs have 3 cells per phase
to reach 3.3kV or six cells to reach 6.6kV medium voltage
levels. Phase-Shifted PWM (PS-PWM) is usually used for
modulation of CHB as it ensure uniform cell usage . Multilevel
converters have low switching frequency due to high power
rating of the system , limits of switching devices, efciency
and heat dissipation constraint. The PV string consists of
series connection of several PV modules, to reach a voltage
level close to the dc link voltage of one cell of the CHB
converter. The number of modules per string can be different
and interfaced through different dc-dc converters. Several
strings can be connected to each dc-bus up to the power rating
allowed by each cell.In multistring conguration ,it is possible
to use strings of different power ratings . Nevertheless, system
should be designed with same installed capacity for each dc-
bus so that imbalances occur only due to mismatch among
modules, partial shading and possible disconnection of one or
more strings due to some fault.In this way ,the overall system
has more fault tolerance and will be able to operate properly
with good performance over a wider range of disturbances
[4]. In this work, the main contribution is the analysis and
control of the power imbalances of the grid tied converter
using space vector modulation(SVM), and therefore less detail
will be given on the dc-dc stage control and topology.Boost
dc-dc converter is among the most commonly used converter
where systems without isolation are allowed or isolation has
been used on ac side. In case of the CHB topology it is
Fig. 1. Cascaded H Bridge PV system conguration
Fig. 2. 5 level Cascaded H Bridge- a phase
recommended to have isolation on dc side, so each string can
be grounded for protection purpose as parasitic capacitance of
the PV modules causes high leakage currents.For simplicity,
boost dc-dc converter has been used in this work.60 degree
coordinate system has been used to implement SVM [9] .
III. PROPOSED CONTROL METHOD
The controller has two types of independent control loops
in this topology: one for the inverter which controls the grid
currents and dc-link voltages and the other for the dc-dc
converters which is used to control the PV string voltage
to the reference given by the MPPT algorithm.Incremental
conductance method has been used for MPPT [10]. The
following subsections will elaborate on the control method
and power imbalance compensation technique for the CHB
converter.
A. voltage oriented control
The modied voltage oriented control(VOC) scheme block
diagram is illustrated in Fig. 3. As with classic VOC, there
is an outer voltage control loop and an inner current control
loop. The outer loop controls the dc-link voltage, and since the
CHB has several dc-links, their average is controlled. Thus,the
total active power needed to control all the dc-link voltages
is obtained. The active power reference given by the voltage
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Fig. 3. Voltage Oriented Control diagram with imbalance compensation
loop, is proportional to the i
d
current component, while the
reactive power is proportional to the i
q
component.The system
model in d-q variables can be written as :
di
d
dt
=
R
s
L
s
i
d
+wi
q
+
(e
d
v
d
)
L
s
(1)
di
q
dt
=
R
s
L
s
i
q
wi
d
+
e
q
L
s
(2)
where R
s
and L
s
are grid interconnection resistance and
inductance respectively,w is grid frequency in rad/s , e
d
and
e
q
are inverter voltage d and q components and v
d
and v
q
are
grid voltage d and q components.Here, there is cross coupling
between two control variables i
d
and i
q
. For easy and effective
control,control action for i
d
and i
q
has been decoupled by
dening two variables x
1
and x
2
:
x
1
= +wi
q
+
(e
d
v
d
)
L
s
(3)
x
2
= wi
d
+
e
q
L
s
(4)
Now,the modied system equations are :
di
d
dt
=
R
s
L
s
i
d
+x
1
(5)
di
q
dt
=
R
s
L
s
i
q
+x
2
(6)
In decoupled control , variable x
1
is controlling only i
d
and the
control variable x
2
is controlling only i
q
. The forcing functions
e
d
and e
q
can be obtained as:
e
d
= v
d
+L
s
(x
1
wi
q
) (7)
e
q
= L
s
(x
2
+wi
d
) (8)
The reactive power reference is usually set to zero for unity
power factor operation. Although ,it can be controlled at
different values for reactive power compensation if demanded
by utility as an ancillary service. Both currents are regulated
using PI controllers that give the converter reference voltage,
which is then converted from d-q reference frame to three
phase voltage references. To ensure unity power factor op-
eration,synchronization is performed using a PLL with the
phase voltages of the grid. The three phase grid currents
are measured and fed back for the current control loop. The
voltage reference given by the current loop is then modulated
using space vector modulation. Note that in order to properly
control the dc-link voltages of each cell and compensate the
inherent power imbalances(as discussed earlier), the SVM
switching needs to be modied. The problem description and
solution for the power imbalance is discussed in the next
sections.
B. Space Vector Modulation
In space vector modulation,we represent the converter de-
mand voltage as a rotating reference on the - plane, on
which the converter switching states occupy discrete points.
The reference vector is synthesized by selecting converter
states adjacent to the reference for time periods such that the
time averages of the reference and the converter voltages are
equal during each sampling period. Many switching states are
redundant as they produce identical vectors. The vertex of each
triangle represents a space vector, which is dened by
V = V
a
e
j0
+V
b
e
j2/3
+V
c
e
j4/3
(9)
where V
a
, V
b
and V
c
are the phase voltages of the inverter.
The diagram can be divided into six major triangular sectors
(I to VI), and the details of sector I is given in Fig. 4.In this
work ,60

coordinate system is used:

V
m
= V cos() V sin()

(3) (10)
V
n
= V cos(60

) V sin(60

)/

(3) (11)
where V
m
and V
n
are the coordinates of a space vector V
in the 60

coordinate system, and V and are its amplitude

(length) and phase angle respectively. The advantage of using
this coordinate system is easy dwell time calculation and easy
identication of triangle in which the reference vector lies.
C. Power Imbalance Problem Description
The power generated by a PV module depends heavily on
solar irradiance and operating temperature of the module. The
maximum power point will depend on these two operating
conditions which can be quite different among various parts
of large PV plants due to partial shading and module mis-
match. Because of this, power delivered by each PV string
to the power cells of the CHB will not be identical causing
power imbalance among them. Two types of power imbalance
may exist: power imbalance among the cells of a phase
and imbalance among three phase powers . The rst means
for example that the power handled by each H-bridge of a
particular phase are not equal (P
a1
= P
a2
for a two-cell CHB).
The second is the difference among total power handled by
each phase of the converter (P
a
= P
b
= P
c
). These two
type of imbalances affect the control of the CHB converter.
The per-cell imbalance leads to dc-link voltages from that
phase drifting from their reference value, which causes inverter
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Fig. 4. 5 level Space Vector diagram with only rst sector shown (Due to
space limitation)
TABLE I
CELL STATES & OUTPUT VOLTAGE
Switch status Cell State Output
voltage
S1,S2 On(S3,S4 Off) 1 V
S3,S4 On(S1,S2 Off) -1 -V
S1,S3 On(S2,S4 off) or S2,S4
On(S1,S3 Off)
0 0
output voltage distortion. The per phase imbalance affects the
current control loop due to which the grid current will be
unbalanced . The fact that VOC returns a single balanced
voltage reference, means that if the power is different among
the cells, the currents must be unbalanced. This is not allowed
by existing grid codes.
D. Power Imbalance Compensation Method
Each cell can have 3 states as shown in Table I.During cell
state 1 and -1,capacitor C
dc
will discharge and during cell
state 0 ,it will charge .In SVM redundant states are available as
shown in Fig 4.These states can be used for dc link balancing.
Following steps are taken to select the switching state of
converter :
TABLE II
PHASE STATUS
Voltage Phase Status
V
dc
,ph<396 1
396<=V
dc
,ph<=404 2
V
dc
,ph>404 3
TABLE III
CELL STATUS
Voltage Cell Status
V
dc
,cell<196 1
196<=V
dc
,cell<=204 2
V
dc
,cell>204 3
TABLE IV
CELL BALANCE STATUS
Cell 1 status Cell 2 status Cell balance status
2 2 1
3 3 2
1 1 3
1 3 4
3 1 5
3 2 6
1 2 7
2 3 8
2 1 9
TABLE V
PHASE STATUS AND ALLOWED STATES
Phase Status Cell 1 state
constraint
Cell 2 state
constraint
States allowed
1 0 0 0
2 No No All
3 1,-1 1,-1 2-2,0
Fig. 5. Capability to start up from zero initial dc link voltages : V
dc,ref
and V
dc
[refer to Fig. 3]
Fig. 6. Capability to start up from zero initial dc link voltages (a)Phase a
dc link voltages (b)Phase b dc link voltages (c)Phase c dc link voltages
(1) Find phase status for all phases and cell status for all
cells as given in Table II and Table III.
(2) If phase status for all phases and cell status for all cells
is 2 ,then use LSA method [9] to select the switching state
TABLE VI
CELL BALANCE STATUS AND ALLOWED STATES
Cell balance
Status
Cell 1 state
Constraint
Cell 2 state
Constraint
States allowed
1 No No All
2 1,-1 1,-1 2,-2,0
3 0 0 0
4 0 1,-1 1,-1
5 1,-1 0 1,-1
6 1,-1 No All
7 0 No 1,-1,0
8 No 1,-1 All
9 No 0 1,-1,0
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Fig. 7. Performance with imbalance caused by step change in solar radiation at t=0.6 s (a)Line-line Converter output voltage(V
ab
,V
bc
,V
ca
) (b)Grid currents
(i
a
,i
b
,i
c
) with scaled down grid voltage V
a
to show synchronism (c)Power handled by cells of phase a showing cell power imbalance(P
a1
,P
a2
) (d)Power
handled by 3 phases showing phase power imbalance(P
a
,P
b
,P
c
)
Fig. 8. DC-link voltages with cell and phase imbalance at t=0.6 s (a)Phase
a (b)Phase b (c)Phase c
Fig. 9. Line to neutral voltages of converter
for the converter and go back to step (1) otherwise go to step
(3).
(3) Find cell balance status for each phase as given in
Table IV.
(4) Find the desired states for each phase depending upon
phase status and cell balance status as given in Table V and
Table VI respectively.
(5) At any particular instant,select the desired switching state
of the converter.It should satisfy the need of at least one
phase state .
(6) If it does not satisfy the need of even a single phase
state,select the switching vector calculated by LSA method.
IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
A three phase 5 level CHB with two cells per phase is
considered for simulation results. Each dc-link is controlled to
200V. The system has capability to start up on its own from
zero initial dc link voltages.It can be clearly seen in Fig. 6 that
initial voltage of all six dc link capacitors is zero.The mean
dc link voltage reference (refer to Fig. 3) is ramped up to 200
V from zero as shown in Fig. 5.In steady state, all dc links
are balanced as shown in Fig. 6a,Fig. 6b,Fig. 6c.
The PV module modelled and simulated has rated power
output of 224 W and 28V rated voltage at 25

C with a solar
radiation of 1kW/m
2
. Considering the dc-link voltage and the
module rated output voltage a total of 3 PV modules are
connected in series. Four such cells are connected in parallel
to reach a total power rating of 2688 W per cell. This makes a
total of 72 modules rated at total of 16.1 KW. Matlab/simulink
has been used as simulation tool. To test the performance of
the proposed imbalance control method, a step change has
been performed to the radiation level. All power cells of
the converter start at rated temperature (25

C) and radiation
1kW/m
2
(1 pu). At t=0.6 s , a step change to the radiation of
the strings connected to cell a1 and b1 is performed to force
a per cell as well as per phase imbalance. Solar radiation is
lowered to 0.8pu for both cells.
The resulting modulated converter output voltage wave-
forms are shown in Fig. 7a. The performance of the imbalance
compensation is obvious from Fig. 7b, where the three phase
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TABLE VII
SIMULATION PARAMETERS
Parameter Value
Grid Voltage(Line-Line) 400V RMS
Grid Frequency 50 Hz
Rated Power 16.1 KW
Grid interconnection inductance 3 mH
Grid interconnection resistance .09
DC-link capacitance 10 mF
Per cell DC-link voltage 200 V
Per phase DC-link voltage 400 V
Equivalent output frequency of phase voltage 5800 Hz
grid currents appear completely balanced in steady state,
despite the converter phases are operating at different power
levels. The grid phase a voltage has been scaled down
and plotted together with the currents to show the proper
synchronism . The power handled by each cell of phase a of
the converter is illustrated in Fig. 7c. Here the effect of the
step change in the solar radiation given to cell a1 is clearly
visible. Finally, the total power of each phase of the converter
are given in Fig. 7d. The system is proved to be working with
good performance and power quality in spite of signicant
imbalance introduced to different cells and phases.
To fully validate the imbalance compensation method the
dc-link voltages of the both cells of each phase are given
in Fig. 8. The dynamic behavior of the per cell imbalance
compensation can be appreciated in the dc-link voltages of
all three phases as shown in Fig. 8, from t=0.6s.The line to
neutral voltage of the converter is shown in Fig. 9.
The simulation results show that the proposed method can
achieve the control goals meeting the grid code requirements
with good power quality and the Photovoltaic system maxi-
mum power output for the given radiation.
V. CONCLUSION
Control strategy based on SVM has been developed for
medium voltage converter interface based on a three phase
CHB multilevel topology under cell as well as phase power im-
balance condition . The multistring converter structure consists
of dc-dc and a grid tied dc-ac converter. The grid side control
and the PV strings control are decoupled in this converter. The
prominent challenges related to CHB multilevel conguration
are the possible existence of two types of power imbalance:
among the power cell of one phase of the converter and among
the phases of the converter. These problems have been solved
by using novel space vector modulation. The three phase CHB
multistring topology with the proposed control and imbalance
compensation methods can be used for PV power plants.
Additional advantages are the inherent superior power quality
of the CHB , low switching frequency (higher efciency) and
possible fault tolerant operation.
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