Switching Signals Based Condition Monitoring for Submodule Capacitors in Modular Multilevel Converters
Zhi Geng, Minxiao Han, Guangyang Zhou
Abstract
The capacitors are one of the most important com- ponents in modular multilevel converter (MMC). Due to the large numbers of capacitors applied in MMC, the primary technical challenge about the capacitors is reliability. To identify the abnormal capacitors and improve the performance of MMCs, the capacitor condition monitoring strategy is proposed in this brief. In the monitoring algorithm, the relationship of the capacitances in an arm is deduced. The actual and nominal sums of switching signals for submodules (SM) are used to estimate the capacitances. Furthermore, a compensation for dead time is added to enhance the monitoring accuracy. The proposed condition monitoring algorithm not only simplifies the calculation of capacitances with high accuracy, but also has no adverse influence on the normal operation of MMCs. The feasibility of the proposed strategy is verified by the simulation results in MATLAB/Simulink.