The Fault Detection, Localization, and Tolerant Operation of Modular Multilevel Converters with an Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT) Open Circuit Fault

Wei Li, Gengyin Li, Rong Zeng, Kai Ni, Yihua Hu and Huiqing Wen
Additional contact information
Wei Li: State Key Laboratory of Alternate Electrical Power System with Renewable Energy Sources, North China Electric Power University, Changping District, Beijing 102206, China
Gengyin Li: State Key Laboratory of Alternate Electrical Power System with Renewable Energy Sources, North China Electric Power University, Changping District, Beijing 102206, China
Rong Zeng: Power Electronics and Electric Machine Group, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Knoxville, TN 37932, USA
Kai Ni: Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3GJ, UK
Yihua Hu: Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3GJ, UK
Huiqing Wen: Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University, Suzhou 215123, China

Energies, 2018, vol. 11, issue 4, 1-20

Abstract: Reliability is one of the critical issues for a modular multilevel converter (MMC) since it consists of a large number of series-connected power electronics submodules (SMs). In this paper, a complete control strategy including fault detection, localization, and tolerant operation is proposed for the MMC under an insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) open circuit fault. According to the output characteristics of the SM with the open-circuit fault of IGBT, a fault detection method based on the circulating current and output current observation is used. In order to further precisely locate the position of the faulty SM, a fault localization method based on the SM capacitor voltage observation is developed. After the faulty SM is isolated, the continuous operation of the converter is ensured by adopting the fault-tolerant strategy based on the use of redundant modules. To verify the proposed fault detection, fault localization, and fault-tolerant operation strategies, a 900 kVA MMC system under the conditions of an IGBT open circuit is developed in the Matlab/Simulink platform. The capabilities of rapid detection, precise positioning, and fault-tolerant operation of the investigated detection and control algorithms are also demonstrated.

Keywords: modular multi-level converter; fault detection; circulating current; output current observation; fault localization; fault-tolerant operation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/11/4/837/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/11/4/837/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:11:y:2018:i:4:p:837-:d:139523

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().