Evaluation of Flying Capacitor Quasi 2-level Modulation for MV Applications

Inhalt:
The demand of highly efficient power converters for Medium Voltage (MV) applications is increasing rapidly. Fast and efficient, wide-bandgap semiconductors such as Silicon Carbideor Gallium Nitride are gaining market share. However, their voltage levels are still far from being enough to be utilizedin MV power converters. This study investigates Quasi-Two Level operation of multi-step Flying Capacitor Converterfora 10 kVac MVSolid-State Transformer application. This configuration has advantages such as decreased dV/dt and usage of small-volume capacitors(less than 1muF). On the other hand, there is a limitation in selection of switching frequency for a given modulation index.