Synthesis of different types of energy based controllers for a Modular Multilevel Converter integrated in an HVDC link

Modular Multilevel Converter (MMC) is becoming increasingly popular with the development of HVDC connections and, in the future, with the integration of Multi Terminal DC grids. A lot of publications have been published about this topology these last years since it was first proposed. Few of them are addressing explicitly the two different roles that are held by this converter in an HVDC link: power control or DC voltage level control. Moreover, for a given function, different ways of controlling this converter may be considered. This paper proposes an overview of the different solutions for controlling the MMC and proposes a methodology to synthesize the control architecture.