Analysis of Arm Current Harmonics in Modular

Multilevel Converters with Main-Circuit Filters

Kalle Ilves, Staffan Norrga, Lennart Harnefors, Hans-Peter Nee
KTH, Royal Institute of Technology
Stockholm, Sweden
AbstractIn a modular multilevel converter the circulating
current that ows through each phase leg can affect the perfor-
mance and efciency of the converter. If measures are not taken to
control the circulating current, it will inevitably contain a second-
order harmonic. There are various solutions for eliminating this
second-order harmonic. One of the proposed solutions includes
a main-circuit lter that is tuned to block the second-order
harmonic in the circulating current. This paper presents an
analytical relation between the ac-side current and the higher-
order harmonics in the circulating current when such a lter
is used. It is found that when third-order harmonic injection
is used, a large fourth-order harmonic component may appear
in the circulating current. This is veried by simulating a
32-MVA converter designed for grid connected applications. The
simulation results support the conclusion that it is essential to
take this effect into consideration when designing the main-circuit
lter.
I. INTRODUCTION
For high-voltage dc transmission systems (HVDC) the mod-
ular multilevel converter (M2C) [1][5] seems to be the ideal
converter topology. The reason for this is that it combines
excellent ac-side voltage waveforms, very high efciency,
and straightforward ways to achieve high reliability. In [6] a
thorough analysis of the harmonics in the current circulating
through a bridge leg of an M2C is performed. From that
analysis it is found that one distinct feature of the circulating
current is that, apart from a direct component it only contains
even-order harmonics. Especially, the second-order harmonic
component may have a signicant amplitude. If the second-
order harmonic in the circulating current is not suppressed
it will increase the losses and current-rating requirements
of the converter [7]. The rst option to reduce this second-
order harmonic component is of course by means of control
of the arm voltages [4], [8], [9]. This will, however, cause
a reduction of the maximum output voltage to allow room
for control actions [7]. Another option would therefore be to
insert a tuned lter for removal of the second-order harmonic
[7]. The question is how this lter inuences the frequency-
domain characteristics. This is a very important issue for the
design of the control system. Up to now, no such analysis
has been presented. It is, therefore, the aim of this paper to
shed some light on this topic using the framework of analysis
in [6]. A matter of particular interest is the case when third-
order harmonic injection [10] is used in the modulation to
increase the maximum output voltage. The main-circuit lter is
designed to block the second-order harmonic in the circulating
current [7]. Third-order harmonic injection may, however,
Fig. 1: A three-phase schematic of an M2C.
generate higher-order harmonic components in the common-
mode voltages that drive the circulating current. This paper
provides analytical equations for the common-mode voltages
and identies possible problems that can occur when a main-
circuit lter is combined with third-order harmonic injection.
The outline of this paper is as follows. Section II includes
a brief overview of the topology and explains about the
terminology that is used in this paper. Section III provides a
discussion about about arm currents and circulating current.
In Section IV it is investigated how third-order harmonic
injection affects the relation between the ac-side current and
the circulating current. The ndings in Section IV are veried
by simulations in Section V which is followed by some nal
conclusions in Section VI.
II. OPERATING PRINCIPLES AND TERMINOLOGY
A three-phase modular multilevel converter is illustrated in
Fig. 1. Each phase leg consists of one upper and one lower arm
connected in series between the dc terminals. Each arm has
N series-connected submodules and one arm inductor. These
submodules are, in fact, half-bridges that are equipped with dc
capacitors, as shown in Fig. 1. Each submodule capacitor has
the capacitance C and each arm inductor has the inductance
L. A submodule is said to be bypassed if the lower switch
is closed and the upper switch is open. If the lower switch is
open and the upper switch is closed, the submodule is said to
be inserted.
The converter is controlled in such way that the submodule
capacitors maintain a certain charge over time. The capacitor
2012 - 9th International Multi-Conference on Systems, Signals and Devices
978-1-4673-1591-3/12/$31.00 2012 IEEE
voltages can be kept balanced by using a sorting mechanism
when inserting and bypassing submodules as presented in [11],
but other voltage balancing methods exist as well [12], [13].
The system that is simulated in Section V is controlled by
utilizing the sorting mechamism presented in [11].
The capacitors act as voltage sources that can be inserted
an bypassed in the chain of series connected submodules. This
way the ac-terminal voltage can be controlled by varying the
number of inserted submodules in the upper and lower arms
by using multilevel pulse width modulation. The normalized
reference value for the number of inserted submodules in the
arms are referred to as insertion indices. The insertion indices
are denoted as n
l
for the lower arm and n
u
for the upper arm.
The voltages and currents are dened as for inverter opera-
tion. The ac-side current, i
ac
, and the line-to-neutral voltage,
v
ac
, can be described by
i
ac
=

i
ac
cos (
1
t + ) (1)
v
ac
= v
ac
cos (
1
t) (2)
where
1
is the fundamental angular frequency. If the voltage
ripple in the submodule capacitors is neglected the ac-side
voltage can be controlled by simply varying the number
of inserted submodules sinusoidally. That is, to produce the
voltage v
ac
at the ac terminal, n
l
and n
u
can be chosen as
n
l
=
1 + mcos(
1
t)
2
(3a)
n
u
=
1 mcos(
1
t)
2
(3b)
where m is the modulation index. The modulation index
relates the amplitude of the ac-side voltage, v
ac
, to the dc-
link voltage V
dc
and is dened as
m =
2 v
ac
V
dc
. (4)
As the insertion index cannot be greater than unity or less than
zero, the maximum modulation index m in (3) is limited to
1.0. If third-order harmonic injection is used, the maximum
modulation index can, however, be increased by 15 % [10].
It will be shown in Section IV that including a third-order
harmonic component in the voltage reference will create an
important difference in the properties of the system that
governs the current that is owing through each phase leg.
III. ARM CURRENTS AND CIRCULATING CURRENT
The current owing in the arms are termed arm currents
and are denoted as i
u
for the upper arm and i
l
for the lower
arm. These are dened such that a positive arm current is
charging the capacitors in the inserted submodules. That is,
the positive direction of the upper arm current, i
u
, is from
the positive dc terminal towards the ac terminal. Similarly, the
positive direction of the lower arm current, i
l
, is from the ac
terminal towards the negative dc terminal. It becomes obvious
that with the dened directions of the arm currents, the ac-
side current, i
ac
, must be equal to the difference between the
upper and lower arm current. That is, the ac-side current can
be expressed as
i
ac
= i
u
i
l
. (5)
The mean value, i
c
, of the upper and lower arm currents is
referred to as circulating current, that is
i
c
=
i
u
+ i
l
2
. (6)
Solving (5)(6) for i
u
and i
l
gives
i
u
= i
c
+
1
2

i
ac
cos (
1
t + ) (7a)
i
l
= i
c

1
2

i
ac
cos (
1
t + ) . (7b)
In the steady state, the circulating current, i
c
, can be described
by the general expression
i
c
= i
dc
+

n=1

i
n
cos (n
1
t +
n
) (8)
where the direct component, i
dc
, is the time average, corre-
sponding to the energy exchange between the phase leg and the
dc link. The direct component can be expressed as a function
of the modulation index and the ac-side current [6], that is,
i
dc
=
m
4
cos(). (9)
The equations relating the circulating current to the ac-side
current are derived in [6]. For reference, a brief overview
of the derivation of these equations is presented here. The
current that is owing through the submodule capacitors is, on
average, equal to the product of the insertion index and the arm
current. Similarly, the voltage that is inserted in each arm is,
on average, equal to the product of the insertion index and the
available voltage in the submodule capacitors. The variations
in the submodule voltages can be expressed as the integral of
the capacitor currents divided by the capacitance. The inserted
voltages in the lower and upper arms then becomes
v
l
= V
0
+ n
l
N
C

n
l
i
l
dt (10a)
v
u
= V
0
+ n
u
N
C

n
u
i
u
dt (10b)
where V
0
is the time average of the inserted voltage.
The relation between the inserted voltages and the circulat-
ing current is given by
2Ri
c
+ 2L
di
c
dt
= V
dc
v
l
v
u
(11)
where R is the arm resistance. In the next step, (7)(10)
are substituted in (11), as done in [6]. After performing the
integrations and expanding the resulting products the terms
can be sorted by their harmonic orders. The relation between
the alternating components in the circulating current and the
ac-side current can then be expressed as in [6], that is,

v
2
z
2
x
4
v
4
z
4
x
6
v
6
z
6
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

i
2
e
j2

i
4
e
j4

i
6
e
j6
.
.
.

r
0
0
.
.
.

(12)
Fig. 2: A main-circuit lter tuned to eliminate the second-order
harmonic in the circulating current.
where
x
n
= j
m
2

1
4(n 1)
(13a)
v
n
= j
2(n
2
1) + n
2
m
2
2n
1
(n
2
1)
+
2C
N
Z
n
(13b)
z
n
= j
m
2

1
4(n + 1)
(13c)
r = j
m

3e
j
m
2
cos()

8
1

i
ac
(13d)
and Z
n
represents the impedance in the phase leg. Typically,
the impedance in the phase leg is given by
Z
0,n
= 2R + jn
1
2L (14)
where L is the total inductance of the arm inductors and R
is the total resistance in the phase leg. It is evident that the
circulating current will not only contain a direct component
but also a set of even-order harmonics governed by (12).
A. Including a Main-Circuit Filter
The harmonic components in the circulating current are
dominated by a second-order harmonic which can be elim-
inated by using a main-circuit lter [7]. When such a lter
is used, each arm inductor is connected in series with a lter
inductor as shown in Fig. 2. The lter inductors are connected
in parallel with a lter capacitor that has the capacitance
C
f
. The capacitance C
f
is chosen such that the second-
order harmonic in the circulating current is blocked. The lter
capacitance is then given by
C
f
=
1
4
2
1
L
f
. (15)
where L
f
is the inductance of the inductive branch of the lter
as shown in Fig. 2.
The relation between the ac-side current and the circulating
current can be described by (12) if the impedance across the
lter is included in Z
n
. Accordingly, when a main-circuit lter
is used, Z
n
is given by
Z
f,n
= 2R + jn
1
2L +
jn
1
L
f
1 n
2

2
1
C
f
L
f
+ R. (16)
Substituting C
f
in (16) with (15) shows that the imaginary
part becomes innite when n is equal to two. Thus it becomes
obvious that there will not be any second-order harmonic in
the circulating current. The main-circuit lter has an impact
on higher-order harmonics as well. This can be shown by
extracting the relation between the second-order harmonic and
higher-order harmonics from (12), that is,

v
4
z
4
x
6
v
6
z
6
x
8
v
8
z
8
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

i
4
e
j4

i
6
e
j6

i
8
e
j8
.
.
.

g
0
0
.
.
.

(17)
where
g = x
4

i
2
e
j2
. (18)
When a main-circuit lter is used, g is equal to zero. This
means that the only valid solution for (17) is the zero vector.
Consequently, a main-circuit lter tuned for the second-order
harmonic forces the circulating current to become a direct
current.
IV. THIRD-ORDER HARMONIC INJECTION
When the insertion indices are chosen as in (3) the max-
imum modulation index m that can be achieved is 1. The
maxmimum modulation index can, however, be increased by
adding zero sequence components to the voltage reference.
A common method of increasing the operating range of three-
phase converters is third-order harmonic injection [10]. By
adding a third-order harmonic to the voltage reference the
maximum ac-side voltage can be increased by 15%. With
third-order harmonic injection, the insertion indices are given
by
n
3,l
=
1 + m

cos(
1
t)
1
6
cos(3
1
t)

2
(19a)
n
3,u
=
1 m

cos(
1
t)
1
6
cos(3
1
t)

2
. (19b)
The relation between i
ac
and i
c
can be derived by repeating
the calculations in [6] with the insertion indices in (19). It
is then found that the right-hand side of (12) will have two
non-zero elements representing second-order, and fourth-order
harmonics. The process of calculating the elements in (12)
is straightforward but very space consuming. Therefore, only
the results are presented here. The procedure is, however, dis-
cussed in [6]. After the elements in (12) have been recalculated
using the insertion indices in (19), the relation between the
alternating current and higher-order harmonics in i
c
can be
expressed as

v
4
z
4
x
6
v
6
z
6
x
8
v
8
z
8
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

+A

i
4
e
j4

i
6
e
j6

i
8
e
j8
.
.
.

w
4
w
6
0
.
.
.

(20)
where
w
4
= j

5e
j
96

m
2
cos()
36

i
ac
(21a)
w
6
= j
m
3
cos()
864
1

i
ac
(21b)
and A is a matrix that is written on the form
A =

a
4,4
a
4,6
a
4,8
a
6,4
a
6,6
a
6,8
. . .
a
8,4
a
8,6
a
8,8
.
.
.
.
.
.

. (22)
The elements in A are given by
a
n,n6
= j
m
2
144(n 3)
1
(23a)
a
n,n4
= j
(2n 4) m
2
24(n 3)(n 1)
1
(23b)
a
n,n2
= j
(2n 2) m
2
24(n 3)(n + 1)
1
(23c)
a
n,n
= j
n m
2
72(n
2
9)
1
(23d)
a
n,n+2
= j
(2n + 2) m
2
24(n + 3)(n 1)
1
(23e)
a
n,n+4
= j
(2n + 4) m
2
24(n + 3)(n + 1)
1
(23f)
a
n,n+6
= j
m
2
144(n + 3)
1
(23g)
and
a
n,nk
= 0 , k > 6 (24)
where k is any integer greater than 6. It is observed that
there are two new harmonic components in the right-hand side
of (20). It can be concluded that when third-order harmonic
injection is used, there will also be a fourth- and a sixth-order
harmonic component in the common mode voltages.
It is evident that the zero vector is no longer a solution
for (20). Consequently, the main-circuit lter does not fully
suppress all harmonic components in the circulating current
when third-order harmonic injection is used. In fact, if the
lter is not designed properly, the amplitude of the fourth-
order harmonic may become very large.
A. Filter Design For a Grid Connected 32-MVA Converter
As an example, the impact of different lter designs for a
grid-connected 32 MVA converter is investigated here. The
specications of this ctive converter are presented in Table I.
The arm inductors play an important role in limiting fault
currents in grid-connected applications [7]. Therefore, the total
arm inductance is chosen to be a xed value, 0.1 per unit, using
[2] as a guideline. The size of the lter inductance can then
be expressed as the fraction p of the total inductance, that is
p =
1
2
L
f
L +
1
2
L
f
. (25)
Since the sum of L and
1
2
L
f
is constant, L, L
f
, and C
f
can
be expressed as functions of p. Accordingly,
L = (1 p)L
tot
(26a)
L
f
= 2pL
tot
(26b)
C
f
=
1
8p
2
1
L
tot
(26c)
Fig. 3: The phase-leg impedance, |Z
leg
|, at different frequencies.
TABLE I: Specications of the 32-MVA converter
Rated power 31 MVA
Rated voltage 15.3 kV (rms, line-to-line)
Rated current 1.2 kA (rms line current)
Line frequency 50 Hz
Total arm inductance 2.3 mH (10 %)
Submodule capacitance 3.33 mF (39 kJ/MVA)
Total arm resistance 60 m (0.8 % per arm)
Number of submodules 5 Submodules per arm
DC-link voltage 25 kV
Nominal submodule voltage 5 kV
where L
tot
is the total inductance in each arm. It is observed
that it can be advantageous to have a larger portion of the
inductance in the lter. This way the the size of the lter
capacitance could be reduced. A drawback with using a too
low value of p is, however, a reduced damping of high-
frequency components. The impedance across the phase leg,
Z
leg
, is given by
Z
leg
= 2R + j2L +
j
1
L
f
1
2
L
f
C
f
. (27)
By using the relations in (26) the phase-leg impedance can be
expressed as
Z
leg
= 2R + j(1 p)2L
tot
+ j
8
2
1
pL
tot
4
2
1

2
. (28)
It is evident that the frequency-domain characteristics of Z
leg
depends on the distribution p. This is illustrated in Fig. 3 where
the magnitude |Z
leg
| is plotted as a function of the frequency
for two different values of p. It can be observed that a higher
value of p, which leads to a reduced cost and size of the
lter capacitor, comes with the price of a reduced damping
for high-frequency components in the circulating current.
The derived relation in (20) can be used to calculate the
amplitude of the fourth-order harmonic for the converter in
Table I with different values of p. The normalized amplitude
of the fourth-order harmonic for active-power transfer is shown
in Fig. 4 as a function of the distribution p. It is observed that
the amplitude of the fourth-order harmonic is almost equal to
half of the ac-side current when p is equal to 0.63. However,
for a higher value of p, 0.95, the amplitude of the fourth-
order harmonic is only 2.3% of the ac-side current. It can
be concluded that certain combinations of inductances and
capacitances in the system design may render unacceptable
operating conditions. To verify these ndings the different
lter designs will be compared in simulations. The values of
the arm inductance, lter inductance and lter capacitance for
these two cases are listed in Table II
Fig. 4: Normalized amplitude of the fourth-order harmonic for
different distributions of the arm inductance.
TABLE II: Inductor and Capacitor Values
Distribution (p) L L
f
C
f
0.63 1.74 mH 2.95 mH 0.86 mF
0.95 0.23 mH 4.45 mH 0.57 mF
V. SIMULATION RESULTS
In order to verify the ndings from the analytically derived
equations, the system specied in Table I is simulated in
the simulation software PSCAD. In these simulations the
converter is operating at full active-power transfer in inverter
mode with the modulation index 1.0. As a reference, the
system is rst simulated without the main-circuit lter. The
impact of third-order harmonic injection is investigated by
rst starting the simulation with a sinusoidal reference, and
then activating third-order harmonic injection at approximately
0.04 seconds. The resulting arm currents for the considered
operarting point and system design are shown in Fig. 5. It is
evident that the arm currents are heavily distorted as a result
from the alternating components in the circulating current. It
is also observed that the third-order harmonic injection further
increases the harmonic distortion of the arm currents.
The necessity of controlling the circulating current becomes
clear if the numerical data from the simulation is analyzed. By
using a fast fourier transform algorithm, the amplitude of each
harmonic component can be identied. In this way, it can be
investigated how the harmonic components affect the peak and
rms-value of the arm currents. During the rst 40 ms, when
a sinusoidal reference was used, the alternating components
in the circulating current increased the rms-value of the arm
currents by 17% and the peak-value by 43%. For the later
half of the simulation, when third-order harmonic injection
was used, the alternating components in the circulating current
increased the rms-value of the arm currents by 20% and the
peak value by 47%. In both cases, the alternating components
gives a signifcant increase in resistive losses and current
ratings of the semiconductors, thus motivating the use of a
control-scheme or main-circuit lter to suppress harmonics in
the circulating current.
The system is then simulated with a main-circuit lter. In
the rst simulation, the distribution of the inductance is chosen
such that p is equal to 0.95 (see Table II). According to the
calculations, this means that the amplitude of the fourth-order
harmonic should be 2.5% of the ac-side current. To verify
the analytical results, the system was rst simulated without
Fig. 5: Insertion indices and arm currents without the main circuit
lter or circulating current control.
Fig. 6: Insertion indices and arm currents with p = 0.95.
third-order harmonic injection, meaning that the insertion
indices in (3) were used. After approximately 0.04 seconds,
the third-order harmonic injection was activated, meaning that
the insertion indices are given by (19). The insertion indices,
arm currents, and circulating current during this simulation
are shown in Fig. 6. As expected, there is a slight, barely
noticable, increase in the harmonic contents of the circulating
current after the third-order harmonic injection was activated.
The operating conditions are, however, still acceptable and it
is concluded that the main-circuit lter functions well even
with third-order harmonic injection.
The analytical calculations indicate that for a certain lter
design the amplitude of the fourth-order harmonic can become
very large. The calculations suggest that the amplitude of the
fourth-order harmonic may become equal to almost half of the
amplitude of the ac-side current. This means that the amplitude
of the fourth-order harmonic in i
c
would be almost equal to
the amplitude of the fundamental frequency component in the
Fig. 7: Insertion indices and arm currents with p = 0.63.
arm currents. This is veried by simulating the system with
a lter design where p is equal to 0.63 (see Table II). Again,
the system is rst simulated without third-order harmonic
injection, which is activated at approximately 0.04 seconds.
The results of this simulation are shown in Fig. 7. As expected,
a fourth-order harmonic of almost the same magnitude as
the fundamental frequency component appears after the third-
order harmonic injection is activated. This causes a signicant
increase in resistive losses and also reduces the operating range
since the peak current is signicantly increased due to the large
fourth-order harmonic in the circulating current.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper a modular multilevel converter with a main-
circuit lter tuned to block the second-order harmonic com-
ponents in the circulating current is considered. An analytical
relation between the ac-side current and higher-order harmon-
ics in the circulating current is derived. It is observed that
there is an important difference between the two cases when
a sinusoidal voltage reference is used and when third-order
harmonic injection is used. If third-order harmonic injection is
used the fourth-order harmonic in the circulating current may
become unacceptably large for certain lter designs. This was
veried by simulating a 32-MVA converter with two different
lter designs. As expected, it could be observed that with the
wrong lter design the fourth-order harmonic in the circulating
current becomes unacceptably large. It can therefore be con-
cluded that when a main-circuit lter is used the impact on
higher-order harmonics must be considered. Failing to take this
effect into consideration may render unacceptable operating
conditions resulting in increased losses and and current-rating
requirements.
REFERENCES
[1] S. Allebrod, R. Hamerski, and R. Marquardt, New transformerless,
scalable modular multilevel converters for HVDC-transmission, in
Proc. IEEE Power Electronics Specialists Conf. (PESC), 2008, pp. 174
179.
[2] R. Marquardt, Modular multilevel converter: An universal concept for
HVDC-networks and extended dc-bus-applications, in Proc. Int. Power
Electronics Conf. (IPEC), 2010, pp. 502507.
[3] , Modular multilevel converter topologies with dc-short circuit
current limitation, in Proc. IEEE 8th Int Power Electronics and ECCE
Asia (ICPE & ECCE) Conf, 2011, pp. 14251431.
[4] A. Antonopoulos, L.

Angquist, and H.-P. Nee, On dynamics and voltage
control of the modular multilevel converter, in Proc. European Conf.
Power Electronics and Applications (EPE), 2009, pp. 110.
[5] L. Harnefors, S. Norrga, A. Antonopoulos, and H.-P. Nee, Dynamic
modeling of modular multilevel converters, in Proc. 2011-14th Euro-
pean Conf. Power Electronics and Applications (EPE), 2011, pp. 110.
[6] K. Ilves, A. Antonopoulos, S. Norrga, and H.-P. Nee, Steady-state
analysis of interaction between harmonic components of arm and
line quantities of modular multilevel converters, IEEE Trans. Power
Electron., no. 99, 2011, Early Access.
[7] B. Jacobson, P. Karlsson, G. Asplund, L. Harnefors, and T. Jons-
son, VSC-HVDC transmission with cascaded two-level converters, in
CIGRE-Session, 2010.
[8] L.

Angquist, A. Antonopoulos, D. Siemaszko, K. Ilves, M. Vasiladiotis,
and H.-P. Nee, Inner control of modular multilevel converters - an
approach using open-loop estimation of stored energy, in Proc. Int.
Power Electronics Conf. (IPEC), 2010, pp. 15791585.
[9] Q. Tu, Z. Xu, and J. Zhang, Circulating current suppressing controller
in modular multilevel converter, in Proc. IECON 2010 - 36th Annual
Conf. IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, 2010, pp. 31983202.
[10] J. A. Houldsworth and D. A. Grant, The use of harmonic distortion
to increase the output voltage of a three-phase PWM inverter, IEEE
Trans. Ind. Appl., no. 5, pp. 12241228, Sept. 1984.
[11] A. Lesnicar and R. Marquardt, An innovative modular multilevel
converter topology suitable for a wide power range, in Proc. IEEE
Bologna Power Tech, vol. 3, 2003.
[12] M. Hagiwara, R. Maeda, and H. Akagi, Control and analysis of the
modular multilevel cascade converter based on double-star chopper-
cells (MMCC-DSCC), IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 26, no. 6,
pp. 16491658, June 2011.
[13] K. Ilves, A. Antonopoulos, S. Norrga, and H.-P. Nee, A new modulation
method for the modular multilevel converter allowing fundamental
switching frequency, in Proc. IEEE 8th Int. Power Electronics and
ECCE Asia (ICPE & ECCE) Conf., 2011, pp. 991998.