Impedance Shaping Effects and Stability Assessment of Circulating Current Control Schemes in Modular Multilevel Converters

Control of circulating current can help modular multilevel converters (MMCs) improve the internal performance, but only the conventional circulating current suppression control has been considered in impedance models to investigate MMC-grid interactions. In this paper, the sequence impedance responses of circulating current injection methods based on instantaneous information are modeled for stability analysis. Compared with circulating current control schemes based on predefined references, the circulating current injection methods based on instantaneous information introduce couplings among circulating current, output current and capacitor voltage control loops, which influence the MMC impedance in the low frequency range. This paper reveals that injection of second harmonics in the circulating current reduces the capacitor voltage ripples, but the system stability is compromised due to the couplings. The MMC stability boundaries for different circulating current controllers are defined with the help of sequence impedance model and Bode-plot-based analysis. The impedance model and stability assessment are validated by frequency scan results and case studies.