Integration of an Active Filter and a Single-Phase AC/DC Converter with Reduced Capacitance Requirement and Component Count

Existing methods of incorporating an active filter into an AC/DC converter for eliminating electrolytic capacitors usually require extra power switches. This inevitably leads to an increased system cost and degraded energy efficiency. In this paper, a concept of active-filter integration for single-phase AC/DC converters is reported. The resultant converters can provide simultaneous functions of power factor correction, DC voltage regulation, and active power decoupling for mitigating the low-frequency DC voltage ripple, without an electrolytic capacitor and extra power switch. To complement the operation, two closed-loop voltage-ripple-based reference generation methods are developed for controlling the energy storage components to achieve active power decoupling. Both simulation and experiment have confirmed the eligibility of the proposed concept and control methods in a 210-W rectification system comprising an H-bridge converter with a half-bridge active filter. Interestingly, the end converters (Type I and Type II) can be readily available using a conventional H-bridge converter with minor hardware modification. A stable DC output with merely 1.1% ripple is realized with two 50-μF film capacitors. For the same ripple performance, a 900-μF capacitor is required in conventional converters without an active filter. Moreover, it is found out that the active-filter integration concept might even improve the efficiency performance of the end converters as compared with the original AC/DC converter without integration

Suppression of Second-Order Harmonic Current for Droop-Controlled Distributed Energy Resource Converters in DC Microgrids

Droop-controlled distributed energy resource converters in dc microgrids usually show low output impedances. When coupled with ac systems, second-order harmonics typically appear on the dc-bus voltage, causing significant harmonic currents at the converters resource side. This paper shows how to reduce such undesired currents by means of notch filters and resonant regulators included in the converters control loops. The main characteristics of these techniques in terms of harmonic attenuation and stability are systematically investigated. In particular, it is shown that the voltage control-loop bandwidth is limited to be below twice the line frequency to avoid instability. Then, a modified notch filter and a modified resonant regulator are proposed, allowing to remove the constraint on the voltage loop bandwidth. The resulting methods (i.e., the notch filter, the resonant regulator, and their corresponding modified versions) are evaluated in terms of output impedance and stability. Experimental results from a dc microgrid prototype composed of three dc-dc converters and one dc-ac converter, all with a rated power of 5kW, are reported

A plug-and-play ripple mitigation approach for DC-links in hybrid systems

© 2016 IEEE.In this paper, a plug-and-play ripple mitigation technique is proposed. It requires only the sensing of the DC-link voltage and can operate fully independently to remove the low-frequency voltage ripple. The proposed technique is nonintrusive to the existing hardware and enables hot-swap operation without disrupting the normal functionality of the existing power system. It is user-friendly, modular and suitable for plug-and-play operation. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the ripple-mitigation capability of the proposed device. The DC-link voltage ripple in a 110 W miniature hybrid system comprising an AC/DC converter and two resistive loads is shown to be significantly reduced from 61 V to only 3.3 V. Moreover, it is shown that with the proposed device, the system reliability has been improved by alleviating the components' thermal stresses

Double-Frame Current Control with a Multivariable PI Controller and Power Compensation forWeak Unbalanced Networks

The handling of weak networks with asymmetric loads and disturbances implies the accurate handling of the second-harmonic component that appears in an unbalanced network. This paper proposes a classic vector control approach using a PI-based controller with superior decoupling capabilities for operation in weak networks with unbalanced phase voltages. A synchronization method for weak unbalanced networks is detailed, with dedicated dimensioning rules. The use of a double-frame controller allows a current symmetry or controlled imbalance to be forced for compensation of power oscillations by controlling the negative current sequence. This paper also serves as a useful reminder of the proper way to cancel the inherent coupling effect due to the transformation to the synchronous rotating reference frame, and of basic considerations of the relationship between switching frequency and control bandwidth.Comment: 17 pages, contribution to the 2014 CAS - CERN Accelerator School: Power Converters, Baden, Switzerland, 7-14 May 201

Study of the generator/motor operation of induction machines in a high frequency link space power system

Static power conversion systems have traditionally utilized dc current or voltage source links for converting power from one ac or dc form to another since it readily achieves the temporary energy storage required to decouple the input from the output. Such links, however, result in bulky dc capacitors and/or inductors and lead to relatively high losses in the converters due to stresses on the semiconductor switches. The feasibility of utilizing a high frequency sinusoidal voltage link to accomplish the energy storage and decoupling function is examined. In particular, a type of resonant six pulse bridge interface converter is proposed which utilizes zero voltage switching principles to minimize switching losses and uses an easy to implement technique for pulse density modulation to control the amplitude, frequency, and the waveshape of the synthesized low frequency voltage or current. Adaptation of the proposed topology for power conversion to single-phase ac and dc voltage or current outputs is shown to be straight forward. The feasibility of the proposed power circuit and control technique for both active and passive loads are verified by means of simulation and experiment

Active power decoupling for current source converters:An overview scenario

For single-phase current source converters, there is an inherent limitation in DC-side low-frequency power oscillation, which is twice the grid fundamental frequency. In practice, it transfers to the DC side and results in the low-frequency DC-link ripple. One possible solution is to install excessively large DC-link inductance for attenuating the ripple. However, it is of bulky size and not cost-effective. Another method is to use the passive LC branch for bypassing the power decoupling, but this is still not cost-effective due to the low-frequency LC circuit. Recently, active power decoupling techniques for the current source converters have been sparsely reported in literature. However, there has been no attempt to classify and understand them in a systematic way so far. In order to fill this gap, an overview of the active power decoupling for single-phase current source converters is presented in this paper. Systematic classification and comparison are provided for researchers and engineers to select the appropriate solutions for their specific applications

Influence of the ICFF decoupling technique on the stability of the current control loop of a grid-tied VSC

© 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes,creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.The control scheme of grid-tied converters is often implemented in the dq-frame due to simplicity of design. However, with this transformation, there exists an inherent cross-coupling term between the d-and q-channels which is often compensated for by using a feed-forward term in the current-control loop. It is shown, by applying the generalized Nyquist criterion (GNC) to the dq-frame ac impedance of the converter, that the inclusion of this decoupling term, in fact, degrades the stability of the controller when increasing the bandwidth of the synchronous reference frame phase-locked loop (SRF-PLL). Harware-in-the-loop (HIL) experiments are also conducted and verify these results.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Uncovering Droop Control Laws Embedded Within the Nonlinear Dynamics of Van der Pol Oscillators

This paper examines the dynamics of power-electronic inverters in islanded microgrids that are controlled to emulate the dynamics of Van der Pol oscillators. The general strategy of controlling inverters to emulate the behavior of nonlinear oscillators presents a compelling time-domain alternative to ubiquitous droop control methods which presume the existence of a quasi-stationary sinusoidal steady state and operate on phasor quantities. We present two main results in this work. First, by leveraging the method of periodic averaging, we demonstrate that droop laws are intrinsically embedded within a slower time scale in the nonlinear dynamics of Van der Pol oscillators. Second, we establish the global convergence of amplitude and phase dynamics in a resistive network interconnecting inverters controlled as Van der Pol oscillators. Furthermore, under a set of non-restrictive decoupling approximations, we derive sufficient conditions for local exponential stability of desirable equilibria of the linearized amplitude and phase dynamics

Power Quality Enhancement in Electricity Grids with Wind Energy Using Multicell Converters and Energy Storage

In recent years, the wind power industry is experiencing a rapid growth and more wind farms with larger size wind turbines are being connected to the power system. While this contributes to the overall security of electricity supply, large-scale deployment of wind energy into the grid also presents many technical challenges. Most of these challenges are one way or another, related to the variability and intermittent nature of wind and affect the power quality of the distribution grid. Power quality relates to factors that cause variations in the voltage level and frequency as well as distortion in the voltage and current waveforms due to wind variability which produces both harmonics and inter-harmonics. The main motivation behind work is to propose a new topology of the static AC/DC/AC multicell converter to improve the power quality in grid-connected wind energy conversion systems. Serial switching cells have the ability to achieve a high power with lower-size components and improve the voltage waveforms at the input and output of the converter by increasing the number of cells. Furthermore, a battery energy storage system is included and a power management strategy is designed to ensure the continuity of power supply and consequently the autonomy of the proposed system. The simulation results are presented for a 149.2 kW wind turbine induction generator system and the results obtained demonstrate the reduced harmonics, improved transient response, and reference tracking of the voltage output of the wind energy conversion system.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

A generalized switching function-based SVM algorithm of single-phase three-leg converter with active power decoupling

In this paper, a generalized switching function-based space vector modulation (SVM) algorithm is presented and evaluated to minimize the dc voltage utilization and the ac utility grid current total harmonic distortion. This paper explores the control and modulation techniques of a single-phase three-leg converter with an active power decoupling method, where a generalized SVM algorithm is proposed and evaluated for easy implementation in a digital control platform. The active power decoupling method with the proposed converter can be achieved via dependent control and modulation techniques. The control method is separated into the ac active power control part and the dc power ripple control part, which can maintain a unity power factor at the ac utility grid and reduced the double-frequency ripple power effect on the dc-side. Simulation results validate the performance of the modulation algorithm and its control and demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed power converter, as well as the two mentioned operation modes of the power converter