RT22 | Accelerating development of new multilevel converters using advanced real-time simulators

The development and integration of renewable energy sources have gained significant attention over the past few decades to increase energy consumption demand while reducing carbon emissions. Voltage-source-converter-based high voltage direct current (VSC-HVDC) transmission, as the enabling technology, plays an essential role in integrating large-scale remotely-located renewables to power grids. To further reduce power converter losses and converter station footprint, VSC-HVDC systems have evolved in the past twenty years from the traditional two- and three-level converters to modular multilevel converters which is well-known for its higher modularity, reduced harmonics, and improved converter efficiency. Recent advancements in VSC-HVDC have brought a new class of multilevel converter topologies, i.e., the so-called hybrid cascaded multilevel converters, which combine the reduced footprint of the conventional VSCs with lower losses and reduced output harmonics of the MMC. The hybrid multilevel converters are promising for the next generation VSC-HVDC transmission technology. A research team, led by Dr. Liwei Wang, in UBC Yesanagan is working on new hybrid multilevel converters topologies, controls, efficient modeling, and real-time simulations. Development and verification of new multilevel converter topologies and fast control prototyping rely on advanced real-time power electronics simulation tools and converter hardware testbenches. The leading-edge real-time simulation environment provided by OPAL-RT technologies including combined CPU and FPGA based real-time power system/electronics simulator and MMC testbench has played essential role in the research and development of new power converters. In this presentation, Dr. Liwei Wang will detail his team’s effort in applying OPAL-RT advanced real-time simulation tools and hardware prototyping platforms to accelerate the development and testing of new multilevel converters for HVDC and FACTS applications.