Abstract:
This paper presents the real-time simulation of modular multilevel converter (MMC) systems on a hybrid simulation platform. An FPGA-based real-time simulator is used to augment the capabilities of a processor-based simulator to enable the real-time simulation of MMC-based systems. The FPGA-based simulator is used to simulate the MMC while the rest of the power system is simulated on a processor-based simulator from RTDS technologies. The FPGA-based simulator has a massively parallel, customized, hardware architecture that is tailored to the solution of the mathematical model of the modular multilevel converter.
The paper also presents the implementation of the sorting and submodule selection techniques required to maintain the capacitor voltages balanced.
M. Matar, D. Paradis, R. Iravani, Presented at the International Conference on Power Systems Transients (IPST2013) in Vancouver, Canada July 18-20, 2013. Paper #: 13IPST009
KEYWORDS: Modular multilevel converter, FPGA, real-time simulation, voltage balancing.