Development and testing midpoint voltage balance algorithms of three-level inverters

Abstract

Nowadays, the use of inverters is increasing in more and more applications. Environmental awareness is becoming a trend, so more and more people install solar energy systems on their houses, which also require the use of inverters. Higher power levels have led to the emergence of three-level inverters which has opened up new challenges, such as the issue of midpoint voltage balancing. This paper discusses voltage balancing and voltage ripple reduction techniques for three-level inverters with Neutral-Point Clamped (NPC) topology. The balancing is based on injecting zero-sequence voltage component in carrierbased modulation. The viability of the modulation techniques are verified by computer simulation and then tested on hardware.