Review of High‐Power Converters

This chapter deals with state‐of‐the‐art and recent advancements in high‐power converter topologies. Voltage source converters (VSCs) have the highest market share and are widely used in industries. Several VSCs were developed in the past years. Among them, modular multilevel converter (MMC) is a highly regarded topology, which is the main focus of this book. The modular multilevel converter has several features such as modular construction, high reliability, and cost‐effectiveness because it uses low‐voltage, insulated gate bipolar transistor (LV‐IGBT) technology to reach high‐voltage (HV) operation. MMC is directly connected to medium‐voltage (MV) and high‐voltage (HV) grids without any step‐up transformer. A modular approach has been developed to overcome the limitations of semiconductor device ratings and their series connection to achieve higher operating voltage. The main features of matrix converters are sinusoidal input or output waveforms, a controllable input power factor, a wide range of output voltage and frequency control, and light‐weight design unlike that of cyclo‐converter (CCV).