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Technical Lecture

Bidirectional AC-DC Converters

T01.5 - An ANPC-Based Building Block for Medium-Voltage Applications

Tuesday, March 18, 2025
9:50 AM – 10:10 AM ET
Location: Level Three, A315
Medium-voltage power conditioning systems (MV-PCSs) are the key component for integrating various high-power applications into electric power grids. The Cascaded H-Bridge (CHB) converter has demonstrated significant potential for the ac-dc conversion stage. However, while using high-voltage modules can reduce the required CHB medium-voltage building blocks (MV-BBs), it introduces technical and economic challenges, such as low switching frequency, limited current capability, and high costs. This article presents a novel MV-BB based on an active neutral point clamped (ANPC) design. The proposed MV-BB allows switching modules with lower-rated voltages while retaining the same number of cascaded MV-BBs. The switching pattern and modulation technique are examined to offer insights into the operational characteristics and performance. The proposed design leads to lower system power losses, reduced volume, and decreased weight than conventional MV-BBs. For instance, the power losses of HV modules in the proposed topology are reduced by 34%. A prototype was fabricated and tested to validate the feasibility and performance of the proposed MV-BB.