Impact on the electrical characteristics, waveforms and losses of the zero-sequence injection on the Modular Multilevel Converter

The MMC is the solution today to connect HVDC grids to the current HVAC grid. This paper proposes to evaluate the impact of Zero Sequence Voltage Injection variants, which until now, have not been extensively studied. Such techniques can involve, for example, a reduction of the SM capacitor value, the number of SM requirement and converter losses. The paper presents MMC current model, control and highlights the implication of the zero-sequence voltage. Grid current control structure with the introduction of the zero-sequence voltage is presented in different techniques. These modulation schemes are compared through two main quantities in MMC, the energy requirement defining the SM capacitance value and the power losses.