Analysis of the phase-shifted carrier modulation for modular multilevel converters

The modular multilevel converter (MMC) is an emerging topology for high-power applications and is considered as the development trend of the high-voltage power converters. In this paper, general implementation of the phase-shifted carrier (PSC) modulation with a capacitor voltage balancing method for MMC is first introduced. Then, the mathematical analysis of PSC modulation for MMC is performed to identify the PWM harmonic characteristics of the output voltage and the circulating current. Moreover, influence of the carrier displacement angle between the upper and lower arms on these harmonics is also studied. Using this analysis, the optimum displacement angles are specified for the output voltage harmonics minimization and the circulating current harmonics cancellation, respectively. The harmonic features of the line-to-line voltage and the dc-link current are also investigated. Moreover, an extension of the PSC modulation for MMC with full-bridge submodules is also proposed which can increase the equivalent switching frequency of the output voltage and circulating current by two times compared with the conventional MMC. Finally, the findings are verified experimentally on a prototype of MMC.