A Laboratory-Scale MMC-Based DC System with RCP and PHiL Simulation Capabilities

A laboratory-scale DC system based on Modular Multilevel Converters (MMCs) with Rapid Control Prototyping (RCP) and Power-Hardware-in-the-Loop (PHiL) simulation capabilities is presented. After a system overview with the characterization of the components, and its application in the area of validating power electronics systems, two use cases are presented in detail. One is the validation of grid-tied converter controller designs, showing the RCP capabilities of the testbed. Another one is the PHiL simulation of an MMC, which shows that the number of converters and configurations, as well as the test and fault coverage, can be increased with feasible accuracy.