New junction temperature balancing method for a three level active NPC converter

The Active NPC VSC (3L-ANPC-VSC) features a higher degree of controllability than standard NPC converters, allowing a better temperature distribution among the semiconductors. With the aid of a Predictive Control strategy, a new temperature balancing method for the 3L-ANPC-VSC is introduced. The algorithm is implemented in Matlab and compared with the 3L-NPC-VSC using experimental data of 4.5kV Press-pack IGBT and Diode for the calculation of the losses. The comparison shows a potential for increasing the output power of the 3L-ANPC-VSC topology.