A Ten-Switch Three-Phase Three-Level Inverter

A ten-switch three-phase three-level (10S-3P3L) inverter is proposed to reduce the cost for three-phase three-level inverter application, such as photovoltaic (PV) application. Compared with traditional neutral-point-clamped (NPC) three-phase three-level (3P3L) inverter, the proposed 10S-3P-3L inverter reduces two active switches and six clamping diodes. Due to the special circuit configuration of 10S-3P3L inverter, traditional space-vector pulse-width modulation (SVPWM) is not suitable for it anymore. To solve this problem and achieve almost same performance, a novel SVPWM strategy is also proposed. The proposed SVPWM strategy utilizes only 19 voltage vectors to synthesizes the reference. Simulation results and experimental results are presented to verify the feasibility and advantages of the proposed topology and modulation strategy.