Neutral-point current modeling and control for Neutral-Point Clamped three-level converter drive with small DC-link capacitors

A Neutral-Point-Clamped (NPC) three-level inverter with small DC-link capacitors is presented in this paper. This inverter requires zero average neutral-point current for stable neutral-point potential. A simple carrier based modulation strategy is proposed for achieving zero average neutral-point current. A new simplified model of the neutral-point voltage dynamics is derived for the proposed modulation strategy. This model shows that the neutral-point current is proportional to the power drawn from the converter and it enables the use of well established classical control theory for neutral-point voltage controller design. A PI controller is used for neutral-point voltage balance. The implementation of the proposed modulation strategy and controller is simple. It does not require any information about the output phase currents. The controller is implemented in a 7.5 kW induction machine based drive with only 14 μF DC-link capacitors. A fast and stable performance of the neutral-point voltage controller is achieved and verified by experiments.