Real-Time Simulation of MMCs Using CPU and FPGA

Author

Saad, Hasnida ; Ould-Bachir, Tarek ; Mahseredjian, J. ; DUFOUR, CHRISTIAN ; Dennetiere, Sebastien ; Nguefeu, Samuel

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Ecole Polytech. de Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada

Volume

30

Issue

1

fYear

2015

fDate

Jan. 2015

Firstpage

259

Lastpage

267

Abstract

Modular multilevel converter (MMC) structures are composed of several hundreds to thousands of half-bridge converters. Such large numbers of power switches and electrical nodes introduce important numerical challenges for the computation of electromagnetic transients. The problem becomes particularly more complex for the real-time simulations. This paper presents a feasibility study on the real-time simulation of the MMC models. CPU-based and field-programmable gate array-based implementations are proposed and evaluated for the MMCs having up to 401 levels. The study also provides guidelines for the real-time simulation platform requirements to simulate these MMC models.

Keywords

EMTP; HVDC power convertors; field programmable gate arrays; CPU; EMTP; FPGA; MMC; electromagnetic transients program; field-programmable gate array; modular multilevel converter structures; real-time simulation; Capacitors; Computational modeling; Control systems; Field programmable gate arrays; Integrated circuit modeling; Mathematical model; Real-time systems; Electromagnetic transients program (EMTP); field-programmable gate array (FPGA); high-voltage direct current (HVDC); modular multilevel converter (MMC); real time; voltage source converter (VSC);

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Power Electronics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0885-8993

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TPEL.2013.2282600

Filename

6604412