IEEE TEMPLATE 1

Accurate Accelerated Models For Modular

Multilevel Converters With Very High Voltage
Levels
Ramadhani Kurniawan Subroto, Y. C. Chen, J. T. Tsai , Kuo Lung Lian Senior Member, IEEE, and Chia Chi
Chu Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract— implemented in the electromagnetic transient solver while each

Index Terms—Krylov subspace method, Model reduction, phase of the MMC is modeled as a Thvenin equivalent. Xu et
Modular multilevel converter, Harmonic models, High voltage al have proposed an accelerated model by replacing the SMs
direct current in each arm by a controlled voltage source. Nevertheless, the
problems of these accelerated models are that the SMs are
assumed to be identical and can be replaced with an equivalent
I. I NTRODUCTION
model. Hence, these models cannot be used for simulating
OMPARED with the conventional two-level voltage cases which require access to the individual SM. In [4], the
C source converters (VSCs), multilevel VSCs (MVSCs)
have lower common mode voltage, lower voltage stress on
authors derive a steady-state frequency-domain MMC model
to account for the circular current in the arm current. The
power switches, lower dv/dt ratio, and better harmonic content authors assumed that the dominant harmonic component in
[2]. Among the available MVSCs, modular multilevel VSCs the circular current is second and derived an analytical model.
are particularly suitable for an high voltage direct current However, these assumptions may not be valid for unbalanced
(HVDC) transmission system. As the demand for renew- ac systems because other harmonics may be reflected to these
able energy integration is rising, high voltage direct current currents and voltages after the converter modulation [5]. It has
(HVDC) transmission systems can provide favorable access been shown in [6] and [7], under unbalanced grid conditions,
to distributed renewable energy. For example, one-third of in addition to the double frequency component of the negative
the offshore wind farms in Europe are connected the grid by sequences, positive and zero sequence components are also
HVDC transmission. Nevertheless, for an HVDC system, each appear.
phase of the MMC terminal may consist of several hundreds of In this paper, a highly efficient and accurate model for
submodules (SMs) to switch a module capacitor in and out of an MMC system with high voltage levels is proposed. The
the circuit to synthesize stepped AC or constant DC terminal model is based on a model reduction technique recently
voltages. This imposes a particularly challenging in terms of proposed, which is named Adaptive Residual-Time Restarting
simulation and modeling. For instance, to simulate an HVDC Krylov Subspace (ARTRKS) method [8]. As will be shown
system in an electromagnetic transient simulation program in the paper, the proposed method is able to model various
(EMTSP), one must use very small integration time step to unbalanced conditions, including situations where individual
accurately capture the switching events among hundreds or SM components may be different. The results obtained from
thousands of semiconductor switches, and represent the high the proposed model are highly agreeable with those from real-
frequency dynamics. Hence, the simulation time for running time simulation. Moreover, it will also be shown that when
such a case can be excessively long. Consequently, most of ARTRKS is applied to the harmonic models proposed in [9],
the research on this subject focus on developing simplified it can drastically reduce the computation time. When compared
models that provide similar behavior and dynamic response. with PSCAD/EMTDC and some of the existing steady-state
Nevertheless, these simplified model may not be sufficient models, the proposed model is the most efficient.
for harmonic prediction. For example, time-averaged models The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section II
(TAM) of MMC have been proposed in [1], and later have describes the state space model of an MMC. Section III will
been used to model a practical HVDC system with 401 levels describe the ARTRKS method and how it can be applied to
in [2]. Although the transient trajectories are similar to those the MMC. In Section IV, various example cases studies are
of the detailed models. The TAM is not suitable for harmonic presented. The results are verified with those of real-time and
modeling because averaging is like a low pass filter, which offline simulations demonstrating the validity of the proposed
eliminate high-order harmonics. An efficient MMC model method. Finally, a conclusion is given in Section V.
was proposed in [3] where the external network solution is
II. MMC S TATE S PACE E QUATIONS
R. K. Subroto, Y. C. Chen, J. T. Tsai and K. L. Lian are with the A. Three-phase Three-level MMC
Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science
and Technology (email: ramasubroto@gmail.com, goro5621@gmail.com, and The topology of a three-phase MMC is depicted in Fig. 1.
ryanlian@mail.ntust.edu.tw). Each phase of MMC is composed by upper and lower arms,
IEEE TEMPLATE 2

Half-bridge submodule in
of the upper and lower arms, respectively. Sju and Sjl represent
upper arm switch position for upper and lower arm, respectively.
+
By defining the circulation current of each phase as icir,j =
iu l
j +ij
_ 2 and substituting (3) into (2) then divided by 2 yields
u u l
u
vdc l
+ vdc vcj Sj + vcj Sjl dicir,j
+ = +L + Ricir,j (4)
+ 2 2 dt
+
In addition, substracting (2) and (3) results
+
u l u u l dij
_
vdc + vdc + 2VHg = vcj Sj − vcj Sjl + (L + 2Ls )
dt
+ + (R + 2Rs ) ij + 2vsj (5)
_
Introducing L0 = L + 2Ls and R0 = R + 2Rs , (5) can be
Half-bridge submodule in modified into
lower arm
dij
L0 = −R0 ij − vcj
u u l
Sjl − 2vsj +


Sj − vcj
dt
u l
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of a three-phase MMC vdc + vdc + 2VHg (6)
Extending (6) for all j ∈ {a, b, c}, the VHg can be obtained
as
 
c c c
1 X u u X l l  2 X
+
+ 2VHg = vcj Sj − vcj Sj + vsj
_
3 j=a j=a
3 j=a
_

I u l


− vdc + vdc (7)
+ +

II Substituting (7) into (6), the dynamics of phase current for

+ +
each phase can be represented by (8)-(10). Moreover, the
_ _
circulation current dynamics (4) of each phase can also be
defined as (11)-(13).
The capacitor voltage of each SM in upper and lower arm
can be obtained by using Kirchoffs’ current law (KCL) as
(a) Loop 1 (b) Loop 2
u
Fig. 2. Equivalent circuit of single-phase MMC: (a) Loop 1, (b) Loop 2 dvcj Sju Sju 1
= ij + icir,j − vu (14)
dt 2Csm Csm Rsm Csm cj
l
in which each arm consists of N series connection of SMs dvcj Sjl Sjl 1
=− ij + icir,j − vl (15)
and is connected through an arm inductor L and arm resistor dt 2Csm Csm Rsm Csm cj
R. The SM configuration of MMC can be a half-bridge or
where Csm and Rsm are SM capacitor and resistor, respec-
full-bridge. In this paper, the half-bridge SM is used. In half-
tively. The dc-link capacitor voltage of three phase MMC is
bridge configuration, each SM is formed by a dc capacitor
defined as
and two active switching components working reciprocally. u l
vdc = vdc + vdc (16)
The number of level (m) in MMC determines the number of
N -SMs through this following relationship The dynamics of dc-link capacitor voltage can be obtained as
m−1 c c
N= (1) dvdc 1 X 1 X 1
2 =− ij − icir,j − vdc
dt 2Cdc j=a Cdc j=a Rdc Cdc
where m is assumed to be odd number. The simplified of
single-phase MMC shown in Fig. 2 is employed for analysis. 1
+ idc (17)
By using Kirchoffs’ voltage law (KVL), the dynamics of Loop Cdc
1 and Loop 2 are obtained as where Cdc and Rdc represent dc-link capacitor and resistor,
u l u u dij diuj respectively.
vdc + vdc + VHg = vcj Sj + Ls + Rs ij + L + Riuj + vsj
dt dt
(2)
dil
di B. Three-phase N-level MMC
l j j
−VHg = vcj Sjl + L + Rilj − Rs ij − Ls − vsj (3)
dt dt According to (8)-(10), (11)-(13), (14), (15), and (17), the
where vsj is the source voltage of phase j (j ∈ {a, b, c}), ij generalized m-level three-phase MMC can be represented as
u l
is the phase current, vdc and vdc are dc-link voltage of upper
    
ẋ A B x
u u l l
and lower arm. ij , vcj and ij , vcj denote currents and voltage = (18)
u̇ 0 Ω u
IEEE TEMPLATE 3

dia R0 1  u u u u u u l 2
Sal − vcb l
Sbl − vcc
l
Scl +


= − 0 ia + 0
(−2vca Sa + vcb Sb + vcc Sc ) + 2vca (−2vsa + vsb + vsc ) (8)
dt L 3L 3L0
dib R0 1  u u u u u u l 2
Sal + 2vcb l
Sbl − vccl
Scl +


= − 0 ib + 0
(vca Sa − 2vcb Sb + vcc Sc ) + −vca (vsa − 2vsb + vsc ) (9)
dt L 3L 3L0
dic R0 1  u u u u u u l 2
Sal − vcbl
Sbl + 2vcc l
Scl +


= − 0 ic + 0
(vcc Sc + vcb Sb − 2vcc Sc ) + −vca (vsa + vsb − 2vsc ) (10)
dt L 3L 3L0
dicir,a R 1 1
v u S u + vca l
Sal + v u + vdc l



= − icir,a − (11)
dt L 2L ca a 2L dc
dicir,b R 1 1
v u S u + vcb l
Sbl + v u + vdc l



= − icir,b − (12)
dt L 2L cb b 2L dc
dicir,c R 1 u u l 1
Scl + u l



= − icir,c − vcc Sc + vcc vdc + vdc (13)
dt L 2L 2L

1  u
Fu u

where a3 = Sa1 . . . SaN
3L 0 1×N
1  u
Fu u

b3 = Sb1 . . . SbN
3L0 1×N
T −2  u
Fu u

u l = Sc1 . . . ScN

x = ij icir,j vcj vcj vdc c3
6N +7×1 3L0 1×N

ij =

ia ib ic
T 1
Fla3 l l
 
3×1 = − 0 Sa1 . . . SaN 1×N
 T 3L
icir,j = icir,a icir,b icir,c 1  l
Flb3 l

3×1 = − 0 Sb1 . . . SbN
T 3L 1×N
u u u u

vcj = vca vcb vcc 3N ×1 2  l
Flc3 l

l
T = Sc1 . . . ScN
l l l 3L0
 1×N
vcj = vca vcb vcc 3N ×1
−1  u
Fu u
T 
u =

vsa vsb vsc idc a4 = Sa1 . . . SaN 1×N
8×1 2L

M F
 −1
Fu u u
 
b4 = Sb1 . . . SbN 1×N
A =  P T  2L
W1 W2 6N +7×6N +7 −1  u
Fu u

c4 = Sc1 . . . ScN 1×N
2L
R0 R0 R0
 
R R R −1  l
M = diag − 0 , − 0 , − 0 , − , − − Fla4 = Sa1 . . . SaN l

L L L L L L 6×6 2L 1×N
−2  u −1  l
Flb4 l

Fu u

a1 = Sa1 . . . SaN = Sb1 . . . SbN 1×N
3L0 1×N 2L
1  u −1  l
Flc4 l

Fu u

b1 = Sb1 . . . SbN 1×N = Sc1 . . . ScN 1×N
3L0 2L
 
1  u P1 P2
Fu u

c1 = 0
Sc1 . . . ScN 1×N P =
3L P3 P4 6N ×6N
2  l
Fla1 l
  
= Sa1 . . . SaN T = T1 0 6N ×6N +1
3L0 1×N
 
1  l Gsm
Flb1 l

= − 0 Sb1 . . . SbN 1×N
T1 = diag −
3L Csm 6N ×6N
1  l  −1 −1 −1 −1 −1 −1

Flc1 l

= − 0 Sc1 . . . ScN 1×N W1 = 2Cdc 2Cdc 2Cdc Cdc Cdc Cdc 1×6
3L h i
1  u −Gdc
Fu = u
Sa1 . . . SaN
 W2 = 0 Cdc
a2 0 1×N 1×6N +1
3L    
2  u 0 −ω
Fu u 0 0

b2 = − 0 Sb1 . . . SbN 1×N ω 0
3L 



1  u Ω =
 .. 
Fu u

c2 = Sc1 . . . ScN  0 . 0 
3L0 1×N 


0 −ω
 

1  l 0 0
Fla2 l

= − 0 Sa1 . . . SaN 1×N ω 0 8×8
3L
2  l
Flb2 l

= 0
Sb1 . . . SbN 1×N
3L
1  l
Flc2 l

= − 0 Sc1 . . . ScN 1×N
3L
IEEE TEMPLATE 4

Fu
a1 Fb1
u
Fu c1 Fa1
l
Flb1 Flc1 0
 
u u
 Fa2 Fb2 Fc2 Fa2 Fb2 Fc2 u l l l
0 
 u
 Fa3 Fu u l l l 
b3 F c3 F a3 F b3 F c3 0 
F =  u 1/
Fla4

 Fa4 0 0 0 0 2L 

1

 0 u l
Fb4 0 0 Fb4 0 /2L 
0 0 Fc4 u
0 0 l 1
Fc4 /2L 6×6N +1
h u u u u u u
i
Sa1 SaN Sb1 SbN Sc1 ScN
P1 = diag 2C sm
. . . 2Csm 2Csm . . . 2Csm 2Csm . . . 2Csm 3N ×3N
h u u u u u u
i
Sa1 SaN Sb1 SbN Sc1 ScN
P2 = diag Csm . . . Csm Csm . . . Csm Csm . . . Csm
3N ×3N
h l l l l l l
i
Sa1 SaN Sb1 SbN Sc1 ScN
P3 = −diag 2C . . . 2Csm 2Csm . . . 2Csm 2Csm . . . 2Csm
sm 3N ×3N
h l l l l l l
i
Sa1 SaN Sb1 SbN Sc1 ScN
P4 = diag C . . . Csm Csm . . . Csm Csm . . . Csm
sm 3N ×3N
−4/ 0 0 2/ 0 0 2/ 0 0
 
3L 3L 3L 0 0
 2/ 0 0 −4/ 0 0 2/ 0 0 0 0 
 2 3L 3L 3L
 
 /3L0 0 2/3L0 0 −4/3L0 0 0 0 

B = 
 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 


 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 
. . . . . . . . 


0 0 0 0 0 0 1/Cdc 0
6N +7×8

C. Harmonic Modeling Using State Space Equations where

 T
x̂ = x u xh
 
A B 0
 =  0 Ω 0 
D 0 J
The harmonics dynamics of any variables can be stated as  T
D = D1 D2 . . . D6N+7
1/
 
T 0 ... 0
 .. .. .. .. 
D1 =

 . . . . 

 e−j(k−1)ωT
0 . . . 0

 T 
−jkωT
e
T 0 . . . 0
1/
 
dxh 1 0 ... 0
= jkωxh + e−jkωT x (19)  .
T
dt T  .. .. .. .. 
D6N+7 =  . . . 

e−j(k−1)ωT 
 0 ... 0

T 
e−jkωT
0 ... 0 T
J = diag (J1 , J2 , . . . , J6N+7 )
J1 = J2 = . . . = J6N+7 = diag(0, . . . , j (k − 1) ω,
where k denotes the harmonics of interests in any integer jkω)
values and T represents period. Based on the work of [9], one To obtain the harmonics of interests, one needs to impost
can also simultaneously solve for the harmonics of interests if the periodicity constraint, which is x̂ (t + T ) = x̂ (t)
these harmonics states (xh ) are augmented to the state space
equation. The following is the resulted augmented state space III. P ROPOSED M ODEL R EDUCTION T ECHNIQUES
equation Since (20) is in the form of a homogeneous equation, one
can solve for x̂ (t) by

x̂ (t) = Φ (t; t0 ) x̂ (t0 ) , (21)

where Φ (t; t0 ) represents state transition matrix, formulated
as.
d
x̂ = Âx̂ (20) Φ (t; t0 ) = eÂn (t−tn−1 ) · · · eÂ2 (t2 −t1 ) eÂ1 (t1 −t0 ) (22)
dt
IEEE TEMPLATE 5

where n denotes the number of switching interval resulted by where

the comparison of carrier and modulating signals. Generally
···
 
h1,1 h1,2 h1,q
speaking, the larger modulating frequency, the larger n gen-  .. 
erated. Moreover, from Fig. 3, one can see that although the  h2,1
 h2,2 ··· . 

matrix size of Âi for the 401-level MMC is very large, the  .. 
H̃q =  0
 h3,2 ··· . 
matrix pattern is very sparse. Hence, it is possible to convert  .

 .. .. .. .. 
these large sparse matrix to an equivalent matrix with much  . . . 

smaller size but dense pattern. It was proposed by Saad [10]  0 0 hq,q−1 hq,q 
to project eÂi v, where  is a sparse large matrix with size 0 0 0 hq+1,q
r × r and v is an arbitrary vector with size r × 1 to a Krylov
subspace, which is defined as (23) Moreover, it follows that

n o
κv = span v, Âv, Â2 v . . . , Âq−1 v (23) Vq VqT e v = βVq VqT e v1 (27)
= βVq VqT e Vq e1 , (28)
i
However, the vectors A v form a bad basis for the Krylov  T
subspace because they point in almost the same direction as the where β = kvk, e1 = 1 0 . . . 0 q×1 , and note that
v
dominant eigenvector of A. Therefore, a process called Arnoldi since v1 = kvk , we can write v = βv1 and v1 = Vq e1 .
iteration, which is the stablized Gram Schmidt procedure [11] We can approximate VqT e Vq by eHq , leading to
to get an orthonormal basis of the Krylov subspace, which can
be written as e v ≈ βVq eHq e1 (29)

Hence,
κv = span {v1 , v2 , . . . , vq } (24)
eÂτ v ≈ βVq eHq τ e1 , (30)

Let Vq denote the r-by-q orthonormal matrix whose where τ is the time step.
columns are v1 , . . . , vq . Then, a Hessenberg matrix Hq can Based on the work of [12], the speed of the convergence
be obtained such that (25) holds true. depends on the norm of Âτ . Since Vq eHq τ e1 is a polynomial
approximation, it is more accurate when the norm of Hq τ
is not too large. Nevertheless, if τ is chosen too small, the
Hq = VqT ÂVq (25) computation time may be long. Thus, it is important to find
the appropriate value of τ to speed up the convergence.
Botchev et al. [8] proposed the method called residual-time
The relation between the Vq matrices in subsequent itera- restarting to speed up the convergence time and accuracy of the
tions can be written as reduced system. Essentially, the residual of matrix exponential
is defined as
AVq = Vq+1 H̃q , (26) −tHq
rq (t) = −hq+1,q eT
qe (βe1 ) (31)
 T
where eq = 0 . . . 0 1 q×1 . By defining s ∈ [0, t]
0
and let s is divided into several representative points (usually
into 6 points), then r (s) will consist of several values too.
The first stopping criterion is the determination of Hessenberg
200
matrix size based on the maximum residual r (s). The size
of Hessenberg matrix Hq is automatically determined by
400
performing (31) for each iteration in Arnoldi iteration. If
the maximum residual value at iteration below the maximum
600
predetermined Hessenberg matrix size is less than the specified
tolerance , the iteration will be halted and size of Hq is
800
specified from the last iteration number. In this case, the
restarting technique is not required. However, if the residual
1000 still exceeds the predetermined tolerance  at given maximum
size of Hq iteration, then the restarting technique is applied.
1200 In the restarting technique, the iteration is performed to find
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200
nz = 8434 the maximum intermediate time point (δq ) and compute the
residual for intermediate time points in such a way that the
Fig. 3. The sparsity pattern of Â
residual norm is below the given tolerance. The maximum
intermediate time point can be described as the time when the
IEEE TEMPLATE 6

residual norm intersects the predetermined tolerance. Hence, TABLE I

result of the reduced exponential matrix is represented as T HREE -L EVEL MMC PARAMETERS

AC System L-L source voltage vac = 4.16kV

eÂt v ≈ βVq eHq s e1 (32) PWM System Modulation amplitude ma = 0.87
Modulation frequency mf = 31
where s ∈ [0, δq ] The maximum intermediate time point is Displacement angle θ = 180◦
given as Firing angle δ = −2.1
i−1 MMC system Line Resistance Rs = 0.1755Ω
δq = t (33) Line Inductance Ls = 782µH
nt Arm Resistance R = 0.15Ω
Arm Inductance L = 0.693mH
where i ∈ [1, nt ] denotes the iteration in which the residual Submodule capacitor Csm = 1500µF
norm is larger than the predefined tolerance and nt is the Submodule resistor Rsm = 1GΩ
number of time steps to monitor the residual. DC-link capacitor Cdc = 750µF
DC-link resistor Rdc = 1GΩ

IV. C ASE S TUDIES

To validate the proposed method, four case studies are The solution time step of PSCAD/EMTDC is selected as
carried out. The first case will compare the transient response 0.2µs to provide better accuracy. The transient and steady-
of the proposed method with those of the PSCAD/EMTDC state condition of phase current ib (t), circulation current of
and RTDS. The second case will investigate the proposed phase B are shown in Fig. 4 and Fig. 5, respectively. During
harmonic model of the MMC. It will be shown that the steady-state, the proposed method produces the same pattern
computation time is greatly reduced without compromising as those produced by PSCAD/EMTDC. Moreover, the phase
the accuracy of harmonics. The third case will show that the A upper-arm capacitor voltage in transient and steady-state
proposed harmonic model can easily account for changes in condition is depicted in Fig. 6. As one can see that in the
the submodule. Finally, we will show how the proposed MMC transient condition, the waveform generated by the proposed
model can be interfaced with the OpenDSS to accurately method and PSCAD/EMTDC still has error, but in the steady-
predict how harmonics propagate in a power network. The state condition, the waveform has the same pattern. Fig. 7
three-level MMC parameters are listed in Table I. There are shows the vdc waveform.
u
several modulation techniques applied for three-phase MMC, The harmonics spectra of ib , icir,b , vca , and vdc during
such as nearest level control (NLC) [13], level-shifted carrier steady-state are shown in Fig. 8. The significant harmonics
pulse width modulation (LSC-PWM) [14], phase-shifted car- of ib happened at odd harmonics (25th , 29th , 53rd , 55th ,
rier pulse width modulation (PSC-PWM) [15], [16]. In this 77th , 79th , 83rd , and 85th ), while the significant harmonics of
paper, the PSC-PWM strategy is adopted since it is the most icir,b occurs at even harmonics (2nd , 4th , 26th , and 54th ). The
widely used modulation strategy in industrial applications. largest difference between proposed method, other exponential
In [16], the displacement angle (θ) is introduced as the matrix methods and PSCAD/EMTDC for phase B current
carrier phase difference of the upper and lower arms satisfying occurs at fundamental frequency which is about 0.79 A or
θ ∈ [0, 180◦ /N ]. The N -triangular carries for each N -SMs in 0.24% in percentage error. On the other hand, the largest
each arm are shifted by 360◦ /N to reduce the harmonics [17]. difference between proposed method, other exponential matrix
By defining w ∈ [1, N ], the phase angle of methods and PSCAD/EMTDC is around 0.4 A or 0.19%
u l

carrier signal in occured at 2nd harmonics. Furthermore, it can be clearly seen
the upper arm (θw ) and the lower arm θw can be described
u
as that no relative error resulted from vca and vdc harmonic
◦
(
u
θw = θ + (w−1)360 spectra, confirming that the results are consistent.
N ◦ (34)
θwl
= (w−1)360
N

This simulation is performed in Intel Core i5-6500 with RAM B. Case 2 : Computational Performance of m-level MMC
16 GB. The proposed method is compared with some existing In this case, the simulation of m− level MMC with the total
exponential matrix methods, such as exponential matrix from simulation time 0.05s is performed through proposed method
MATLAB toolbox, regular Krylov method [11], scaling and and other exponential methods, such as expm (MATLAB),
squaring with truncated Taylor [18]. In addition, the brute- regular Krylov, and scaling and squaring with truncated Taylor.
force time-domain simulation (PSCAD/EMTDC) is also con- The modulation frequency index is given as Table I. The larger
ducted to verify the solution generated by proposed method. modulation frquency index will generate the larger number of
switching times. It can lead to be more problematic when the
A. Case 1 : Balanced Condition level of MMC is greater too (size of matrix becomes larger).
However, the proposed method can significantly reduce the
In the first case, a three-level MMC is connected to a computational time compared to other methods as shown in
balanced three-phase AC grid, represented by Fig. 9. It can be clearly seen that the proposed method is supe-
vsa = vs 6 0◦ rior compared to other methods. The required computational


vsb = vs 6 − 120◦ time for m = 401 of proposed method is almost equal to those

vsc = vs 6 120◦ of m = 201 of expm and scaling-squaring truncated Taylor
IEEE TEMPLATE 7

6000 1000
Proposed Method
Proposed Method
800 Basic Krylov
Basic Krylov
4000 SS-TT
SS-TT
expm
expm 600
PSCAD/EMTDC
PSCAD/EMTDC
2000 400

200
0
I b (A)

I b (A)
0
-2000
-200

-4000 -400

-600
-6000
-800

-8000 -1000
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.47 0.475 0.48 0.485 0.49 0.495 0.5
time (seconds) time (seconds)
(a) (b)
Fig. 4. The comparison of ib (t) during (a) Transient condition, (b) Steady-state condition

Proposed Method
6000 Proposed Method
600 Basic Krylov
Basic Krylov
SS-TT
SS-TT
expm
4000 expm
PSCAD/EMTDC
PSCAD/EMTDC 400

2000
200
Icir b (A)

Icir b (A)

0
-2000

-200
-4000

-6000 -400

0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.48 0.482 0.484 0.486 0.488 0.49 0.492 0.494 0.496 0.498 0.5
time (seconds) time (seconds)
(a) (b)
Fig. 5. The comparison of icir,b (t) during (a) Transient condition, (b) Steady-state condition

method. In addition, the significant difference appears when The proposed method built in MATLAB is compared with
m > 251 between proposed method and regular Krylov. PSCAD/EMTDC. The significant harmonic spectra of ib is
shown in Fig. 11. Clearly, the results from MMC model built
in MATLAB and OpenDSS is consistent with those built in
C. Case 3 : Interfacing MMC Model to Microgrid using PSCAD/EMTDC.
OpenDSS
In this case, some MMC are integrated with microgrid. V. C ONCLUSION
The microgrid model is built in Open Distribution System A novel time-domain method to calculate the m-level MMC
Simulator (OpenDSS) environment. The modified microgrid using residual-time restarting Krylov has been proposed. The
system adopts IEEE 13 bus system as depicted by Fig. 10. main proble This method is superior compared to other
The MMC are connected to the grid and act as current source. existing exponential matrix methods. The main problem of
To solve the power flow problem, the MMC converter model modeling MMC is that the larger level/submodule, then the
is assumed as fixed current source. Once the voltages of larger the system matrix generated. This problem can be coped
point common coupling (PCC) are obtained from OpenDSS by reducing the matrix size without omitting the dynamics
solution, the harmonics of phase current in MMC can be easily of its original system. With reduced size of system matrix,
achieved by using the MMC model and voltages of PCC as the computational process can be boosted up compared to
its input. previous existing methods. The MMC model is also built in
IEEE TEMPLATE 8

14000 9200
Proposed Method Proposed Method
Basic Krylov Basic Krylov
12000 SS-TT 9000 SS-TT
expm expm
PSCAD/EMTDC PSCAD/EMTDC
10000 8800

8000 8600
v uca (V)

v uca (V)
6000 8400

4000 8200

2000 8000

0 7800

-2000 7600
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.45 0.455 0.46 0.465 0.47 0.475 0.48 0.485 0.49 0.495 0.5
time (seconds) time (seconds)
(a) (b)
u (t) during (a) Transient condition, (b) Steady-state condition
Fig. 6. The comparison of vca

[5] R. K. Subroto and K. L. Lian, “Modeling of a multilevel voltage

12000 source converter using the fast time-domain method,” IEEE Journal of
Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics, vol. 2, no. 4, pp.
10000
1117–1126, Dec 2014.
[6] S. Li, X. Wang, Z. Yao, T. Li, and Z. Peng, “Circulating current sup-
pressing strategy for mmc-hvdc based on nonideal proportional resonant
8000 controllers under unbalanced grid conditions,” IEEE Transactions on
Power Electronics, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 387–397, Jan 2015.
6000 [7] J. Wang, J. Liang, C. Wang, and X. Dong, “Circulating current
V dc (V)

suppression for mmc-hvdc under unbalanced grid conditions,” IEEE

Transactions on Industry Applications, vol. 53, no. 4, pp. 3250–3259,
4000
July 2017.
[8] M. A. Botchev and L. Knizhnerman, “Art: adaptive residual-time restart-
2000 Proposed Method ing for krylov subspace matrix exponential evaluations,” J. Computa-
Basic Krylov tional Applied Mathematics, vol. 364, 2018.
SS-TT
0 [9] P. W. Lehn and K. L. Lian, “Frequency coupling matrix of a voltage-
expm
PSCAD/EMTDC
source converter derived from piecewise linear differential equations,”
IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 1603–1612,
-2000
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5
July 2007.
time (seconds) [10] Y. Saad, “Analysis of some krylov subspace approximations to
the matrix exponential operator,” SIAM Journal on Numerical
Analysis, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 209–228, 1992. [Online]. Available:
Fig. 7. The comparison of vdc (t) https://doi.org/10.1137/0729014
[11] J. Niesen and W. M. Wright, “Algorithm 919: A krylov subspace
algorithm for evaluating the -functions appearing in exponential inte-
grators,” ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software, vol. 38, no. 3,
PSCAD/EMTDC as benchmark. All cases has proved that 2012. [Online]. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2168773.2168781
the results of proposed method are consistent with those in [12] M. Hochbruck and C. Lubich, “On krylov subspace approximations
PSCAD/EMTDC. to the matrix exponential operator,” SIAM Journal on Numerical
Analysis, vol. 34, no. 5, pp. 1911 – 1925, 1997. [Online]. Available:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1137/S0036142995280572
[13] Z. Li, P. Wang, H. Zhu, Z. Chu, and Y. Li, “An improved pulse
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[1] S. P. Teeuwsen, “Simplified dynamic model of a voltage-sourced con- converters,” IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, vol. 27, no. 8,
verter with modular multilevel converter design,” in 2009 IEEE/PES pp. 3472–3481, Aug 2012.
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tronics, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 57–68, Jan 2012. lation with carrier-based pwm for a two-level and multilevel cascaded
IEEE TEMPLATE 9

350 250
Proposed Method Proposed Method
Basic Krylov Basic Krylov
300 SS-TT SS-TT
expm 200 expm
PSCAD/EMTDC PSCAD/EMTDC
250

150
200

Icir b (A)
I b (A)

150
100

100

50
50

0 0
1 25 29 53 55 77 79 83 85 2 4 26 28 54
Harmonics Number Harmonics Number
(a) (b)

9000 9000 Proposed Method

Proposed Method Basic Krylov
8000 Basic Krylov 8000 SS-TT
SS-TT expm
expm PSCAD/EMTDC
7000 7000
PSCAD/EMTDC

6000 6000

5000 5000
v uca (V)

v dc (V)

4000 4000

3000 3000

2000 2000

1000 1000

0 0
0 1 2 3 -1 0 1
Harmonics Number Harmonics Number
(c) (d)
u , (d) v
Fig. 8. The harmonic spectra of (a) ib , (b) icir,b , (c) vca dc

inverters,” IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, vol. 37, no. 2,

pp. 574–582, March 2001.
[18] A. H. Al-Mohy and N. J. Higham, “Computing the action of the 1
matrix exponential, with an application to exponential integrators,” Proposed Method
0.9 Basic Krylov
SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 488–511,
Scaling-Squaring Trunc. Taylor
2011. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.1137/100788860 0.8 Expm

0.7
Normalization value

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450
Number of Levels

Fig. 9. Normalized computational time of various methods

IEEE TEMPLATE 10

650
Loadbus_2 Loadbus_1

MMC MMC
Converter Model Converter Model

632 633 634

670

671 692 675

680

Fig. 10. Modified IEEE 13 bus test system

700
PSCAD/EMTDC
Matlab + OpenDSS
600

500

400
I b (A)

300

200

100

0
1 2 25 29 53 55 77 79
Harmonics Number

Fig. 11. Harmonics spectra of ib for MMC connected with microgrid