1
> FOR CIYCEE 2020 PAPER <
Analysis of the Flying-Capacitor Modular
Multilevel Converter Based on SiC MOSFET
Kaiyuan Jing, Lei Lin, Member, IEEE, Tianxiang Yin, Student Member, IEEE
2020 IEEE 1st China International Youth Conference on Electrical Engineering (CIYCEE) | 978-1-7281-9659-6/20/$31.00 ©2020 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/CIYCEE49808.2020.9332755

Abstract – Reducing the capacitor voltage ripple amplitude
of the modular multilevel converter (MMC) submodule is
expected to reduce the capacitance of the module capacitors,
which is very important for the increase of the power density.
In the method of reducing capacitor voltage fluctuations of
MMC submodule, flying-capacitor modular multilevel
converter (FC-MMC) has gained extensive attentions because of
its good performance. It is characterized by the connection of
upper and lower arm middle taps through a flying capacitor in
per phase arm. However, the reduction of the capacitance of
flying capacitor requires an increase in switching frequency,
which means high switching loss for the converter. Therefore,
SiC MOSFET has a good application prospect in FC-MMC due
to its low switching loss. This paper mainly compares the
capacitor voltage fluctuation between FC-MMC and MMC, and
the advantages of SiC MOSFET in FC-MMC applications.
Index Terms-- Modular multilevel converter, Submodule
capacitor voltage ripple suppression, Flying-Capacitor modular
multilevel converter, SiC MOSFET
I. INTRODUCTION
T he modular multilevel converter (MMC) has come
through fast development in broad application prospects,
e.g. dc transmission, motor drive, renewable energy
integration, etc., owing to its advantages of good modularity,
flexible scalability and excellent quality of waveforms.
MMC adopts capacitors distributed in each sub-module (SM)
to support DC voltage instead of the centralized capacitors
commonly used in traditional high-voltage direct current
transmission (HVDC) sector. Although MMC has many
advantages, its modular structure brings some problems,
especially the capacitor voltage fluctuation [1].
The SM capacitor accounts for more than half of the
volume and weight of the SM, and about 1/3 of the cost.
Therefore, it is of great significance to reduce the SM
capacitor voltage fluctuation to reduce the capacitance of the
SM capacitor. Currently the methods of reducing capacitor
voltage ripple of MMC submodule can be divided into two
categories: additional control and topology improvement.
Reference [2] inject a secondary component into the
circulating current to reduce the capacitor voltage fluctuation,
injection of high-frequency common-mode voltage and
current is also proposed in [3]-[4]. Although these methods
can solve the capacitor voltage fluctuation of MMC to a

This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China under Grant 51977093 (Corresponding author: Lei
Lin.).
The authors are with the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering,
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Electromagnetic Engineering and
Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan
430074, China. (E-mail: jky775009234@163.com; linlei@mail.hust.edu.cn;
ytxdpblk@gmail.com).
Authorized licensed use limited to: UDESC - Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina. Downloaded on February 02,2022 at 00:19:07 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
certain extent, the current stress and loss of power devices
are greatly increased due to the injection of circulating
current into the bridge arm. Reference [5]-[6] used the third
harmonic voltage to improve the voltage utilization ratio, so
as to reduce the capacitor voltage fluctuation. However, the
third harmonic voltage injection will result in the third
voltage component flowing into the AC side. In [7], an active
power filter (APF) circuit is added to each SM, and uses an
auxiliary capacitor for ripple energy storage, greatly reducing
the fluctuation voltage of SM capacitor. However, this new
topology needs roughly double number of the switching
devices and capacitors, and the power loss of MMC is
increased. Based on the fact that the fundamental frequency
components of pulsating powers of the upper and lower arms
are in opposite phase, reference [8] proposed to add power
channels between the upper and lower arms of each phase, so
that the low frequency voltage fluctuation can be eliminated.
As the same, it needs double number of the switching
devices and the control is complex.
Similarly, reference [9] add a flying capacitor to connect
the upper and lower arm middle taps in per phase arm.
Compared with the power channel, flying-capacitor modular
multilevel converter (FC-MMC) adopts simpler topology.
The power balance between upper and lower arms can be
achieved by properly controlling the current flowing through
the flying capacitor, thereby reducing the capacitor voltage
fluctuation sharply. Meanwhile, it does not increase the
number of switching devices, and no common-mode voltage
is injected into ac side. However, FC-MMC requires higher
switching frequency than MMC for two reasons: high-quality
waveform of the high frequency component in arm voltage
and the reduction of the capacitance of flying capacitor,
which means high switching loss for the converter. Wide
bandgap semiconductor device such as SiC MOSFET, due to
its superior performance over Si IGBT [10], has great
potential to introduce improvement in the state-of-the-art
MMC, and has gained extensive attentions in recent years.
Therefore, SiC MOSFET has a good application prospect in
FC-MMC due to its low switching loss. However, the power
loss of FC-MMC based on SiC devices, and the capacitance
reduction effect comparing with the FC-MMC based on Si
devices are not clear. This paper conducts modeling analysis
and verification on the above problems.
This paper is organized as follows. Section Ⅱ introduces
the circuit architecture and principle of FC-MMC, and design
of the flying capacitor. Section Ⅲ derives the capacitor
voltage fluctuation of traditional MMC to compare it with
FC-MMC, then analyzes the advantages of SiC MOSFET in
place of Si IGBT in FC-MMC. The power loss comparison
based on Si IGBT and SiC MOSFET is presented. In section
 2
> FOR CIYCEE 2020 PAPER <

Ⅳ, simulation result of FC-MMC is presented that capacitor where the detail expressions of the fundamental and high-
voltage fluctuation is reduced by 85.8%. Finally, section Ⅴ frequency components in (1) and (2) are defined in (3). In (3),
concludes this paper. Um, Im, Uhm and Ihm are the amplitudes of these ac
components, and θx and φ are the phase angles of output
II. FC-MMC CIRCUIT voltage and current.
A. FC-MMC Circuit Structure u x = U m sin(t +  x )
u = U sin  t
S1  h, x hm h
ia,p1 D1
 (3)
+
L L L
C0 xi = I m sin( t + x + )
SM SM SM
ua,p1
S2 D2
ih , x = I hm sin h t
- SM SM SM
0.5Udc
+ SM SM SM As shown in Fig. 2(a), the dc voltages are set in the same
ua,p2 direction to support dc bus voltage, while the fundamental
SM SM SM
- voltages produce the ac output voltage, which are set with
L CF L CF L CF
ia,p2 uabc opposite phase angles in upper and lower arms. The
ia,n1 ia high-frequency voltages，which form an inner power transfer
ib
L L L ic ugrid loop through the flying capacitor, are also arranged with
+ SM SM SM
opposite phase angles in top-half and bottom-half arms.
0.5Udc ua,n1
SM SM SM When the power of upper arm is larger than that of lower
-
+
arm, the high-frequency current excited by the
SM SM SM
ua,n2 high-frequency voltage in upper arm flows through the flying
-
SM SM SM capacitor, transferring ripple power from upper arm to lower
L L L arm. By properly controlling the ac current flowing through
ia,n2
the flying capacitor, the power balance between upper and
Fig. 1. Circuit structure of FC-MMC lower arms is achieved, thereby reducing the capacitor
The circuit structure of FC-MMC is showed in Fig. 1. voltage fluctuation.
Each of three-phase legs comprises a flying capacitor, which L
furtherly divides the arm into top-half and bottom-half, so ux,p1 ih,x uh,x
that each phase contents four half-arms. They are referred as
0.5Udc
ux,p1, ux,p2, ux,n1 and ux,n2 respectively, where x (=a, b, c)
ih,x ih,x ih,x
represents three phases. The flying capacitor connects the -uh,x
ux,p2
upper and lower arm from the middle point of the arm so that
CF L
the cascaded number of SM in each arm is usually assigned CF 。 。
with even number, while the outer terminals are connected to ux L
input dc and output ac buses through buffer inductors.
ux,n1 ih,x uh,x
B. Operating Principle
The FC-MMC circuit can be transformed to Fig. 2(a) to 0.5Udc ih,x
-uh,x
ux,n2
simplify the description of operating principle, where the
switching converters are replaced by controlled voltage L
sources. Each half-arm voltage in one phase leg can be (a) (b)
divided into three components: fundamental voltage (ux), dc Fig. 2. Single-phase simplified equivalent circuit (a) FC-MMC (b) flying
voltage (Udc), and high-frequency voltage (uh,x). Half-arm capacitor
voltages and currents can be written as The circuit of flying capacitor can be simplified as Fig.
2(b), where the current flowing through flying capacitor is
 u x , p1 = 0.25U dc − 0.5u x − uh , x twice of the high-frequency current. The equivalent LC
u circuit in Fig. 2(b) has a lowest impedance at its resonant
 x , p 2 = 0.25U dc − 0.5u x + uh , x frequency fr, which can be written as (4).
 (1)
 u x , n1 = 0.25U dc + 0.5u x − uh , x
u x ,n 2 = 0.25U dc + 0.5u x + uh , x 1
fr = (4)
2 CF L
 ix , p1 = id , x + 0.5ix + ih , x
i In order to reduce the impedance of the passive power
 x , p 2 = id , x + 0.5ix − ih , x transfer channel, the frequency (fh) of the high-frequency
 (2)
 ix ,n1 = id , x − 0.5ix − ih , x
components could be set with the resonant frequency.
 ix , n 2 = id , x − 0.5ix + ih , x fh  fr (5)

Authorized licensed use limited to: UDESC - Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina. Downloaded on February 02,2022 at 00:19:07 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 3
> FOR CIYCEE 2020 PAPER <

From (4) and (5), the capacitance of flying capacitor can 3

be calculated as (6). It can be seen that the capacitance is Pdc = U dc I dc = Pac = U m I m cos  (9)
2
mainly determined by the frequency (fh).
From (9), the dc current can be written as
1
CF = 2 2 (6)
3
4 f h L I dc = mI m cos  (10)
4
III. VOLTAGE RIPPLE AND SIC MOSFET APPLICATION where m is the output voltage modulation ratio (m=2Um/Udc).
A. Voltage Fluctuation in MMC Ignoring the voltage over the arm inductor and equivalent
As the three-phase is symmetrical and each phase works resistor, substituting (10) into (8), upper arm voltage and
in the same principle in MMC, this part deduces the current can be written as
capacitor voltage fluctuation taking the upper arm of one
 1 1
phase as an example. When the transmission power and the
u p = 2 U dc − U m sin t = 2 U dc (1 − m sin t )
number of arm sub-modules are determined, the energy  (11)
dispersed to a single SM capacitor is determined, and the arm i = 1 I  m cos  + 2sin (t +  ) 
energy fluctuation can be regarded as the sum of the  p 4 m  
capacitor energy storage changes.
The upper arm instantaneous power can be detailed as
icir(ac) Idc/3
+ p p (t ) = u pip (12)
ip
up From (11), it can be written as
- 0.5Udc U dc I m m 2U dc I m
R0 pp (t ) = sin (t +  ) − cos  sin t
4 8 (13)
uo L0 mU dc I m
io icir + cos(2t +  )
O 8
L0
The instantaneous energy fluctuation of the total N upper
R0 arm capacitors can be written as
0.5Udc
+
1 1
un E = NC0 (uc _ base + u )2 − NC0 (uc _ base − u )2
2 2 (14)
in
- = 2 NC0uc _ base u = 2C0U dc u
Fig. 3. Single-phase equivalent circuit of MMC
where uc_base is the initial capacitor voltage, which is equal to
As is shown in Fig. 3. According to Kirchhoff's voltage Udc/N, and Δu stands for the capacitor voltage ripple.
law and Kirchhoff's current law, the voltage and current Integrating (13), and let it be equal to (14), the capacitor
expressions of the upper arm can be written as voltage ripple can be calculated as
T2
 1 di p  p p ( t ) dt
u p = U dc − uo − L0 − R0i p u =
T1
(15)
 2 dt 2C0U dc
 (7)
 1 1
i p = 3 I dc + 2 io The maximum value of power ripple corresponds to the
maximum value of capacitor voltage fluctuation. Thus, T1
and T2 are the numbers in one period which maximize the
where uo and io are the output voltage and current on ac side,
which can be written as numerator of (15) to calculate Δumax.
B. SiC MOSFET Application in FC-MMC
uo = U m sin t
 (8) From (6), the capacitance of flying capacitor is mainly
io = I m sin (t +  ) determined by the high-frequency (fh). We can get an ideal
capacitance of the flying capacitor with the increasing of the
where Um and Im are the amplitudes of output voltage and frequency (fh). However, the increased frequency requires the
current, φ is the phase angle of output current. Ignoring enhanced switching frequency to ensure the high-quality of
converter loss and power devices loss, the average active the high-frequency component, which will lead to the high
power of the ac side and dc side within a period of the switching loss for the converter. Within acceptable control
system should be equal, which can be written as accuracy, the switching frequency should be ten times larger

Authorized licensed use limited to: UDESC - Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina. Downloaded on February 02,2022 at 00:19:07 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 4
> FOR CIYCEE 2020 PAPER <

than the voltage frequency [11]. So wide bandgap 25

SiC MOSFET
semiconductor device which has lower switching loss has a Si IGBT
great application prospect in FC-MMC. 20
Replacing Si IGBT with SiC MOSFET can solve the

Switching frequency (kHz)

contradiction between the capacitance of flying capacitor and
15
the efficiency of the converter. To analysis the power loss in
FC-MMC based on Si IGBT and SiC MOSFET, the switch
(2355.1w, 12kHz)
device considers the same voltage and current rating but with 10
different materials: Cree 1.7kV 300A SiC power module
(CAS300M17BM2) and ABB 1.7kV 300A Si power module 5
(5SNG 0300Q170300). The simulation parameter is shown
in TABLE І. (1248.5w, 1.2kHz)
0 (2561.3w, 1.2kHz)
The calculation method refers to the articles presented in
[12] and [13]. The calculated condition is based on the rated
load current and rated frequency with the full dc bus voltage. -5
1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500
The conduction loss of each device is calculated according to Power loss (W)
the current and saturation voltage of the device, and the Fig. 5. Relationship of the power loss and switching frequency
average conduction loss of a basic period is calculated.
Switching losses of devices are calculated by switching To ensure the high-quality waveform of the high
frequency and switching energy. Finally, the switching loss frequency component in arm voltage, switching frequency
and conduction loss of each device are added together to is ten times the high-frequency (fs =10fh) [11] . From (6) and
obtain the total power. The comparison results of power loss Fig. 5, the relationship between the power loss and
are presented in Fig. 4. Three switching frequencies (1.2, 2.4 capacitance of flying capacitor can be inferred, as shown in
and 4.8kHz) are studied and compared. As shown in Fig. 4, Fig. 6. It can be seen that the capacitance of flying capacitor
since the transmission power is fixed, the conduction loss is will be reduced greatly by replacing Si IGBT with SiC
almost unchanged. MOSFET. Thus, SiC devices present great potential in
FC-MMC to reduce the system power loss and capacitance
As the equivalent switching frequency goes up, the
compared with the Si solution.
switching loss of Si-IGBT-based MMC increase sharply. The
10-4
reason is that Si devices have much larger turn-on and 9
SiC MOSFET
turn-off energy. When it comes to 2.4kHz, the switching loss Si IGBT
8
of Si-based FC-MMC is already higher than the total
Capacitance of flying capacitor (F)

calculated power loss of SiC-based FC-MMC. The total 7

calculated power loss based on the SiC devices at 4.8 kHz is
6
around 1.6 kW. By contrast, the Si-based FC-MMC could be
as high as 5 kW. 5
Fig. 5 shows the relationship between the power loss and (2900w, 433μF)
switching frequency. The intercept of the function is a minus 4
because the power loss should attain the conduction loss
3
firstly, which is a constant while transmission power is fixed.
When the power loss is equal, the switching frequency of 2
SiC MOSFET is more than ten times that of Si IGBT.
1
Switching loss (kW) Conduction loss (kW) (2900w, 4.22μF)
0
5 4.953 2500 2600 2700 2800 2900 3000 3100 3200 3300 3400
Power loss (W)
Si FC-MMC
4
Fig. 6. Relationship of the power loss and capacitance of flying capacitor
Power loss (kW)

3.358
3
SiC FC-MMC IV. SIMULATION VERIFICATION
2.561
To further verify the capacitor voltage ripple reduction
2
1.617
effect of FC-MMC, a 2400-V 0.36-MW simulation model is
1.371
1.249
built and performed in MATLAB/Simulink. The converter
1 parameters are tabulated in Table I. Simulation results are
shown in Fig. 7. As it shows, the capacitor voltage ripple can
0 1.2 2.4 4.8 1.2 2.4 4.8 be reduced by 85.8% in FC-MMC. From (15), it can be
Switching frequency (kHz) calculated SM capacitance in MMC should be 12mF to keep
the voltage ripple in 15.7V, which is three times as much as
Fig. 4. Power loss analysis of FC-MMC based on Si and SiC devices
capacitance in FC-MMC SM.

Authorized licensed use limited to: UDESC - Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina. Downloaded on February 02,2022 at 00:19:07 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 5
> FOR CIYCEE 2020 PAPER <

TABLE І [2] K. Ilves, A. Antonopoulos, L. Harnefors, S. Norrga, L. Ängquist, H.

PARAMETERS FOR SIMULATION MODEL Nee. Capacitor Voltage Ripple Shaping in Modular Multilevel
Converters Allowing for Operating Region Extension[C]. in Proc.
Parameter Description Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, 2011:
Configuration Single-Phase 4403-4408.
Operating power 0.36MVA [3] M. Hagiwara, K. Nishimura,H. Akagi. A Medium-Voltage Motor
DC-link voltage 7kV Drive With a Modular Multilevel PWM Inverter[J]. IEEE Trans.
Rate phase voltage 2400V(RMS) Power Electron., 2010, 25(7): 1786-1799.
Rate phase current 150A(RMS) [4] A. J. Korn, M. Winkelnkemper,P. Steimer. Low Output Frequency
Submodule number 8 Operation of the Modular Multi-Level Converter[C]. in Proc. IEEE
Fundamental frequency 60Hz Energy Convers. Congr. Expo., 2010: 3993-3997.
Arm inductor 2mH [5] Guo G, Song Q, Yang W, et al. Application of third order harmonic
voltage injection in a modular multilevel converter[J]. IEEE
SM capacitor 4.1mF
Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 2016, 65(7):5260-5271.
Flying capacitor 880μF
[6] Ilves K, Norrga S, Harnefors L, et.al. On energy storage requirements
Resistance of R load 16  in modular multilevel converters[J]. IEEE Trans on Power Electronics,
Frequency of high-frequency component 120Hz 2014, 29(1): 77-88.
SiC MOSFET module Cree-CAS300M17BM2 (1.7kV/300A) [7] Z. Kong, X. Huang, Z. Wang, J. Xiong and K. Zhang, “Active power
Si IGBT module ABB-5SNG 0300Q170300 (1.7kV/300A) decoupling for submodules of a modular multilevel converter,” IEEE
Transactions on Power Electronics 33.1 (2018): 125-136.
900
[8] L. He, K. Zhang, J. Xiong, S. Fan, X. Chen, Y. Xue. New Modular
Multilevel Converter with Power Channels between Upper- and Lower
Arms Suitable for MV Drives[C]. in Proc. IEEE Applied Power
880
Electronics Conf., 2015: 799-805.
[9] S. Du, B. Wu, N. R. Zargari, Z. Cheng. A Flying-Capacitor Modular
ucap (V)

860 Multilevel Converter for Medium-Voltage Motor Drive[J]. IEEE Trans.

u= 15.7V Power Electron., 2017, 32(3): 2081-2089.
840 [10] J.Millan, P.Godignon, X. Perpina, A. Perez-Tomas, and J.Rebollo, “A
survey of wide bandgap power semiconductor devices,” IEEE Trans.
Power Electron., vol. 29, no. 5, pp. 2155–2163, May 2014.
820
0.5 0.55 0.6 [11] J. Pan et al., "7-kV 1-MVA SiC-Based Modular Multilevel Converter
Time (s)
Prototype for Medium-Voltage Electric Machine Drives," in IEEE
(a) Transactions on Power Electronics, vol. 35, no. 10, pp. 10137-10149,
980
Oct. 2020.
u= 133.7V [12] H. Rao, J. Li, Q. Song, S. Xv, M. Chen, X. Li. Loss calculation method
940
and loss characteristic analysis of modular multilevel converter DC
900 transmission system [J]. Electric Power Automation Equipment, 2014,
ucap (V)

860
820
780
0.5 0.55
Time (s)
0.6
(b)
Fig. 7. Capacitor voltage ripple comparison (a) FC-MMC (b) MMC
V. CONCLUSION
This paper firstly introduces the FC-MMC, which is
characterized by the cross connection of the upper and lower
arms in one phase leg through a flying capacitor. The
capacitance of flying capacitor is mainly determined by the
frequency (fh), while the increased frequency will lead the
high switching loss, so SiC MOSFET presents great potential.
Then this paper calculates the capacitor voltage ripple in
traditional MMC, analysis the effect of capacitor voltage
ripple reduction in FC-MMC. Replacing Si IGBT with SiC
MOSFET, the power loss can be reduced to 33%-49%. The
feasibility of the FC-MMC is confirmed by simulation,
which is presented that capacitor voltage fluctuation is
reduced by 88.3%.
REFERENCES
[1] Zhou Yuebin, Jiang Daozhuo, Guo Jie, et al. Analysis of sub-module
capacitor voltage ripples and circulating currents in modular multilevel
converters[J]. Proceedings of the CSEE, 2012, 32(24): 8-14(in
Chinese).
34(06): 101-106.
[13] D. Graovac and M. Pürschel, “IGBT power losses calculation using the
data-sheet parameters,” Infineon Technologies AG, Neubiberg,
Germany, Jan. 2009.
Kaiyuan Jing was born in Henan Province, China. He received the B.S.
degree in electrical engineering in 2019 from Harbin Institute of Technology,
Harbin, China. He is currently working toward the M.S. degree in electrical
engineering at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan,
China. His current research interests include modular multilevel converter.
Lei Lin was born in Jiangxi, China, in 1980. He received the B.S., M.S., and
Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the School of Electrical and
Electronics Engineering (SEEE), Huazhong University of Science and
Technology (HUST), Wuhan, China, in 2001, 2004, and 2007, respectively.
Since 2007, he has been involved in teaching and research in the field of
power electronics with SEEE, HUST. From 2007 to 2009, he was a
Post-Doctoral Fellow. From 2009 to 2010, he was a Lecturer. In 2010 and
2017, he was promoted to Associate Professor and Professor, respectively,
with State Key Laboratory of Advanced Electromagnetic Engineering and
Technology, SEEE, HUST. He has authored or coauthored more than 50
technical papers and holds over ten issued/pending patents. He is an
Associate Director with the Youth Working Committee of the China Power
Supply Society. He is an active expert of IEEE UPFC P2745 series. His
current research interests include modular multilevel converter (MMC) for
high-voltage direct-current (HVdc) applications, high-voltage capacitor
charging power supply, multilevel converters, and related control techniques.
Tianxiang Yin was born in Yangzhou, Jiangsu, China, in 1995. He received
the B.S. degree in electrical engineering in 2018 from the School of
Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and
Technology, Wuhan, China, where he is currently working toward the Ph.D.
degree in electrical and electronic engineering at the State Key Laboratory
of Advanced Electromagnetic Engineering and Technology. His research
interests include high power converters for HVdc system.

Authorized licensed use limited to: UDESC - Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina. Downloaded on February 02,2022 at 00:19:07 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.