New Family of Voltage-Source Converters Derived Using New Basic Cell for Microgrid Applications

A new family of voltage-source converters for microgrid applications is proposed in this paper. The proposed voltage-source converters are constructed by using a new basic cell that is called modified Cuk dc-dc power converter. By using the proposed basic cell, the obtained voltage-source converters have very small input and output ripples with efficiency higher than the conventional ones. The concept is then extended to modular multilevel voltage-source converters. The obtained multilevel converters have very small input and output ripples with self-voltage balancing capability. Conventional control methods that have been developed for conventional voltage-source converters can be applied directly to the proposed voltage-source converters. Several simulated and experimental results are included here to show the basic performance of the proposed converters.