POWER CONVERTERS

Presenter:
Dr. Parag Nijhawan
EIED, TIET, Patiala
 Waveform Distortion
Waveform distortion is defined as a steady-state deviation from an
ideal sine wave of power frequency, principally characterized by the
spectral content of the deviation.
(i) DC offset: The presence of a dc voltage or current in an ac power
system is termed dc offset.
(ii) Harmonics: Harmonics are sinusoidal voltages or currents having
frequencies that are integer multiples of the frequency at which the
supply system is designed to operate (termed the fundamental
frequency; 50Hz in India). Periodically distorted waveforms can be
decomposed into a sum of the fundamental frequency and the
harmonics.
 Harmonics
Harmonic distortion originates in the nonlinear characteristics of
devices and loads on the power system.

It is also common to use a single quantity, the total harmonic

distortion (THD), as a measure of the effective value of harmonic
distortion.

THD is the square-root of the sum of the squares of each individual

harmonic divided by the fundamental frequency voltage.

The problem with this approach is that THD become infinity if no

fundamental is present. One way to avoid this ambiguity is to use
an alternate harmonic distortion index, known as the distortion
index (DIN) which is the square-root of the sum of the squares of
each individual harmonic divided by the square root of the sum of
the squares of all frequency components.
 Effect of Harmonics on Motors

Harmonic fluxes do not produce significant torque

but induce high frequency currents in the rotor
causing losses.
Efficiency is reduced due to more heating, vibration
and high-pitched noises.
As per standards, no need to derate the motor if
THD<=5%.
If THD>=8%, the life of the motor gets shortened.
 Waveform Distortion
Interharmonics: Voltages or currents having frequency
components that are not integer multiples of the frequency
at which the supply system is designed to operate (e.g., 50Hz
in India) are called interharmonics. The main sources of
interharmonic waveform distortion are static frequency
converters, cycloconverters, induction furnaces and arcing
devices. Power line carrier signals can also be considered as
interharmonics.
Subharmonics: These can be defined as frequency
components in voltage and current waveforms that are sub-
multiple of the power system frequency. Cycloconverters, arc
furnaces, adjustable speed drives, wind generators and other
loads inject low frequency currents that produce subharmonic
distortion in voltage supply. The main effect of subharmonic
voltages is the flicker. In addition, it also affects induction
motors, transformers and turbogenerators.
 Waveform Distortion
Notching: Notching is a common power-quality event,
which can be created by rectifiers that have finite line
inductance. Notching is a periodic voltage disturbance
caused by the normal operation of power electronic
devices when current is commutated from one phase
to another. The notches show up due to an effect
known as “current commutation.”
Noise: Noise is defined as unwanted electrical signals
with broadband spectral content lower than 200 kHz
superimposed upon the power system voltage or
current in phase conductors, or found on neutral
conductors or signal lines. Noise in power systems can
be caused by power electronic devices, control circuits,
arcing equipment, loads with solid-state rectifiers and
switching power supplies.
Need To Improve POWER QUALITY LEVELS
 It is necessary to improve power quality levels to fulfil the legislation concerning
harmonic distortion. In this respect, various international Standards have emerged
which are given below:
 IEEE 519-1992 suggests that THD in voltage and current should be less than 5%.
 IEC 61000-2-1 currently defines the inter-harmonic environment.
 IEC 61000-4-7 describes techniques for measurement of inter-harmonics.
 IEC 61000-3-6 provides guidelines to address harmonics issue with sets of steady
state limits.

 All these standards suggest that it is the responsibility of consumer to control the
harmonic distortion in current while to limit harmonic distortion in voltage at point
of common coupling (PCC), the responsibility lies on the shoulders of the electric
utility.

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 Converters

VSC

CSC

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 Preference of VSC over CSC in CP Devices
 CSCs need devices with bi-directional voltage blocking
capability. Currently available devices do not have such good
characteristics.

 Practical current source termination of converter DC terminal

with charged reactor is much lossier than doing the same with
voltage charged capacitor.

 CSCs need capacitive filters at the AC terminals and VSCs need

inductors which are naturally provided by the coupling
transformer.

 VSC termination tends to provide automatic protection of

devices against line voltage transients.
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 Voltage Source Inverter

Limitations:
1. Buck inverter for dc-to-ac and boost rectifier for ac-to-dc power
conversion.
2. Dead time has to be provided in the V-source converter, which causes
waveform distortion.
3. Output LC filter is needed for providing a sinusoidal voltage.
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 Current Source Inverter

Limitations:
1. Boost inverter for dc-to-ac and buck rectifier for ac-to-dc power
conversion.
2. Overlap time for safe current commutation is needed, which also
causes waveform distortion.
3. Direct use of low-cost and high-performance IGBT modules and
intelligent power modules (IPMs) are prevented.
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 Z-Source Inverter

Z-Source Inverter

To overcome the conceptual and theoretical barriers and limitations of

the traditional V-source converter and I-source converter, Z-Source
converter has been implemented. The Z-source concept can be applied to
all dc-to-ac, ac-to-dc, ac-to-ac, and dc-to-dc power conversion.
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 The voltage gain of ZSI and the peak dc-link voltage
across the inverter can be expressed as
(1)

(2)

(3)

The Z-source capacitor voltage is given by

(4)

Drawbacks:
1. High-voltage Z-capacitors should be used.
2. Z-source inverter cannot suppress the inrush current and
resonance between the Z-capacitors and the Z-inductors at
start up.
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Improved Z-Source Inverter

Improved Z-Source Inverter

To solve the problems in the traditional Z-source inverter, a new Z-

source inverter topology is presented with reduced Z-capacitor
voltage stress and inherent inrush current suppression capability.
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 The Z-source capacitor voltage is given by
(5)

the voltage ripple of the Z-capacitors in both the

topologies can be expressed as
(6)

The Z-Inductor current ripple can be expressed as

(7)

The input current for the Z-source inverter is different under the
different control.

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 Control Techniques of ZSI

• Simple Boost Control Method

• Maximum Boost Control Method

• Maximum Constant Boost Control Method

• Third Harmonic Injection Method

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 In SBC method, DSh and M are interdependent
(8)

(9)

the input voltage will be boosted to

(10)

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 In MBC method, shoot‐through duty cycle varies each cycle.
So, we need to calculate average value of the duty cycle.

(11)

(12)

(13)

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 In MCBC, the distance between these two curves
determining the shoot-through duty ratio is always constant
for a given modulation index M.

(14)

(15)

(16)

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Third harmonic injection method:

Third harmonic injection is commonly used in a three-

phase inverter system to increase the modulation index
range. This can also be used for ZSI to increase the
range of M so as to increase system voltage gain range.

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 NEED OF Multilevel Inverters

 Most of the Power Electronics Applications are in low to medium

power range from 5 – 250 kW at the voltage of 200 – 480 V.
 Basic power converters built from these types of semiconductor
switches are not suitable for direct connection to the medium-
voltage grids (e.g., 2.3, 3.3, 4.16, 6.9kV and the like).
 To connect a power electronic device to a high voltage, Multilevel
Converters were born with the specific aim to overcome the voltage
limit of semiconductor devices.
 A multilevel converter not only achieves high voltage ratings but also
it provides many such features which proves helpful in the high
power application field.

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 Features of Multilevel Inverters
 Lower voltage stress on each switching device

 Output voltages with lower harmonic distortion

 Lower dv/dt in the output voltage

 Lower common mode voltage at the application neutral

 Lesser distortion in input current

 Operate at lower switching frequency

 Lower
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 High Power Converters

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 Diode Clamped MLI
 The DC bus voltage is split
in N-1 equal steps capacitor
banks.
 The voltage between two
switches is clamped
through the diodes in the
middle of the structure,
called clamping diodes.
 Each switch voltage stress is
limited to 1 capacitor
voltage
 Cont’d..
 There are 5 switching
combinations to get 5-
level output across the
load.
 Diode reverse voltage is
Vo S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6 S7 S8
given by:
Vr = E / (n-1) V 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0

 No. of Clamping diodes V/2 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0

is given by:
0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0
N = (n-1)(n-2)
-V/2 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0

-V 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1
Advantages:
 Single DC bus configuration,
 Each power device voltage stress equals a capacitor voltage
 For high level DCMLI, filters may not be required at all due to
the significantly low harmonic content
Disadvantages
 Very large no of clamping diodes are required
 Problem of capacitor voltage unbalancing
 Switch utilization is not equal, outer switches receiving a lower
average load
 The reverse voltage drop changes among diodes
 The mean current through different switches is different
 Flying Capacitor MLI
 FCMLI has some similarities
to DCMLI.
 The capacitors have the
same function of the
clamping diodes, so they
are also called clamping
capacitors.
 The voltage stress of each
switch & voltage over each
capacitor is given by:
Vr = E / (n-1)
 Cont’d..
 Switches Tx & Tx’
shouldn’t have same
state.
 Possible switching
configuration for N-level
Vo S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6 S7 S8
FCMLI is given by:
V/2 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0

 FCMLI presents intra- V/4 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0

phase redundancy
0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0
because
-V/2 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0

-V 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1
Advantages:
 Capable of solving capacitor voltage unbalance problem and
excessive diode count requirement in DCMLI
 Capacitors are never shorted to each other and current
continuity to the DC bus capacitor is maintained
 The load is by default equally shared among switches
 Modulation strategy is very easy to implement
Disadvantages:
 A lot of high voltage capacitors required
 Additional circuit required for initial charging of capacitors
 Each capacitor must be charged with different voltages as the
voltage level increases
 The topology is not inherently fault tolerant
 Cascaded H-Bridge Inverter
 In this topology, H-Bridge cells
are used as building blocks.
 Fundamental cell gives 3-level
output and addition of each
cell results increase in output
level by 2.
 Reverse voltage capability of
each switch is Vdc .
 No. of switches required is
(2N-2).

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 Cascaded H-Bridge Inverter
Advantages:
 No clamping diodes or
Capacitor required.
 No transformer required
 Modularized layout Vo S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6 S7 S8

 Flexibility in extending to 2V 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1
higher number of levels
without undue increase V 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0

in circuit complexity 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1

-V 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1

-2V 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 0
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 Disadvantages:
 Number of DC sources required is more than other topologies
 Requires DC sources isolated from one another for each module for applications
involving real power transfer
 The converter can continue to operate at full current capacity but reduced voltage
rating if any of the module fails. So the converter needs more conservative voltage
rating.

Component - Comparison of Different Topologies of MLI

Type of multilevel inverter DCMLI FCMLI CHBMLI
Main power devices (N – 1) x 2 (N – 1) x 2 (N – 1) x 2
Main diodes (N– 1) x 2 (N – 1) x 2 (N – 1) x 2
Clamping diodes (N - 1) x (N- 2) 0 0
DC bus capacitors (N – 1) (N – 1) (N – 1)/2
Balancing capacitors 0 (N – 1) x (N – 2)/2 0

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 Need of PWM
 Many electrical loads like ac drives require high power variable voltage variable
frequency supply. There has been extensive research in the area of Pulse width
modulation schemes in the last couple of decades.
 PWM techniques have been used to achieve variable voltage and variable
frequency in ac-dc and dc-ac converters. PWM techniques are widely being used in
various applications like adjustable speed drives (ASDs), static cycloconverters,
uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) etc.
 The main limitation of power electronic control circuits is to control the harmonic
content.
 The classical square wave inverter used for low or medium power applications has
appreciable amount of lower order harmonics in the output voltage. One possible
solution to control the harmonic levels in high power converters is to employ PWM
control techniques.
 The main purpose of PWM techniques is to have a sinusoidal AC output with
bounded magnitude and frequency. So, PWM switching strategies should be
capable of not only reducing THD but also effectively utilizing dc bus utilization,
spreading
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harmonics and reducing EMI and switching loss.
 Classification of PWM Techniques
 SPWM In SPWM method also known as sine-triangle PWM, three
phase reference modulating signals are compared against a common
high frequency triangular carrier wave to generate PWM pulses for
the three phases.
•In SPWM, magnitude and frequency of the fundamental component of
the line side voltage are controlled by changing the magnitude and
frequency of the modulating signal.
•SPWM scheme is relatively simple and linear between 0% and 78.5% of
six step voltage values.
 SVPWM
• In SVPWM method, the revolving reference vector is used as a reference signal.
•In case of SVPWM, magnitude and frequency of the fundamental component of
line side voltage are controlled by the magnitude and frequency, respectively, of
the reference signal.
•SVPWM scheme utilizes dc bus voltage more efficiently and reduces THD in a
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phase voltage source inverter.
 Modulation Techniques

Modulation Techniques

Space Vector Carrier Based

Modulation Modulation

Level Shifted
Phase Shifted PWM
PWM

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 CARRIER BASED MODULATION

Classification-Tree of Carrier Based Modulation

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 Level Shifted PWM
 n-level Inverter requires (n-1) vertically disposed
carrier waves with 1 modulating wave
 Modulating Waves can be any wave (eg: sine wave,
trapezoidal wave, square wave)
 The Frequency Modulation Index is given by:
mf = fcr / fm
 Neither switching frequency nor conduction time of
device switches are equal
 The average device switching frequency is related to
carrier frequency as: fcr = (n-1)fsw
 Amplitude Modulation Index(ma) = Vm / Vcr(n-1)

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 IPDPWM
 In this PWM technique, the interval of possible voltage reference
values is subdivided into one zone for each carrier which modulates
the output only when the reference belongs to its zone.
 When the reference does not belong to a zone, associated carrier
comparison output stays in high or low level. It is high when the
reference is above the carrier and vice versa. In this way the
comparison output can drive the one group of switches while its
negation can drive complementary group of switches of a MLI.
 The sum of all the comparison outputs, shown in Figure is a signal
proportional to the instantaneous required output level.

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 IPDPWM
In-Phase Disposition PWM
Here, fcr = 2kHz & fm = 50Hz
So, Frequency Modulation Index(mf) = 40
Average Switching Frequency(fsw)= 0.5kHz
Amplitude Modulation Index(ma) = 0.8

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 Cont’d
Phase Opposition PWM
 In this method, all carriers above the zero reference are in
phase but in opposition with those below the zero level.
 Cont’d
Alternative Phase Opposition Disposition PWM
 In this method, alternative carriers are in opposite in
phase and disposed from each other as well.