A 6.

6-kV Transformerless Motor Drive Using a

Five-Level Diode-Clamped PWM Inverter for
Energy Savings of Pumps and Blowers
Natchpong Hatti, Student Member, IEEE, Kazunori Hasegawa,
and Hirofumi Akagi, Fellow, IEEE
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan
Email: hatti.n.aa@m.titech.ac.jp, hasegawa@akg.ee.titech.ac.jp, and akagi@ee.titech.ac.jp

AbstractThis paper describes a 6.6-kV adjustable-speed

motor drive for pumps and blowers without transformer.
The power conversion system consists of a front-end diode
rectifier, a five-level diode-clamped PWM inverter with
a voltage-balancing circuit, and a hybrid active filer for
harmonic-current mitigation of the diode rectifier. A 200-V
5.5-kW downscale model is designed, constructed and tested
with focus on the five-level PWM inverter. Experimental
results obtained from the 200-V downscale model verify
the viability and effectiveness of the 6.6-kV adjustablespeed motor drive, showing that the four split dc capacitors
are well balanced in all the operating conditions with
improvements of operating performance at low inverter
modulation indices.

I. I NTRODUCTION
A. Background
Medium-voltage pump/blower drives requiring no regenerative braking have a market share as high as 70%
[1]. They have been using constant-speed motors and traditional mechanical governors for water/air-flow control.
It is well known that adjustable-speed motors requiring no
mechanical governor bring considerable energy savings to
medium-voltage pump/blower drives. What discourages
introducing adjustable-speed motors into the mediumvoltage drives is mainly the cost of power conversion
systems including bulky and heavy multi-winding transformers and/or passive or active filters for meeting the
harmonic guidelines or regulations [2].
The invention of the three-level neutral-point-clamped
(diode-clamped) PWM inverter [3] has spurred interest
in research on multilevel diode-clamped, flying-capacitor,
and cascade H-bridge converters with more than three
levels of voltage [4]-[6]. Nowadays, the five-level diodeclamped PWM inverter using leading-edge 4.5-kV IGBTs
(insulated-gate bipolar transistors) has the capability of
direct connection to the 6.6-kV motor without any transformer. The following two system configurations based
on the five-level converters exist: One is back-to-back
(BTB) connection of a five-level diode-clamped PWM
rectifier and inverter [7] [8]. The other is combination
of a front-end diode rectifier with a five-level diodeclamped PWM inverter. The former would be confined
exclusively to high-performance motor drives such as
steel-mill drives requiring regenerative braking, while the

978-1-4244-1668-4/08/$25.00 2008 IEEE

latter would be suitable for pump/blower drives without

regenerative braking. The reason is that the diode rectifier
is lower in cost and higher in reliability than the fivelevel diode-clamped PWM rectifier. However, the latter
requires a passive or active filter for mitigating harmonic
currents produced by the diode rectifier.
B. A New Power Conversion System
This paper proposes a 6.6-kV adjustable-speed motor
drive for energy savings of pumps and blowers. The
power conversion system consists of a front-end diode
rectifier, a five-level diode-clamped PWM inverter using
4.5-kV IGBTs, and a hybrid active filer using 1.2-kV
IGBTs. (See Fig. 1.) It is characterized by direct connection to the 6.6-kV industrial power system without
any transformer. This would bring significant reductions
in cost, size and weight to the power conversion system. The five-level PWM inverter is equipped with a
voltage-balancing circuit using two three-level unidirectional buck and boost choppers [9] [10], along with a
voltage-balancing controller superimposing a dc zerosequence component on each of the three-phase reference
voltages [11] [12]. Moreover, the voltage-level usage at
low modulation indices is improved by superimposing
a third-harmonic zero-sequence voltage on each of the
three-phase inverter voltage references. This provides all
the IGBTs with lower switching stress.
A 200-V 5.5-kW downscale model is designed, constructed and tested to verify the viability and effectiveness
of the 6.6-kV motor drive system. However, this paper
pays attention to the five-level diode-clamped PWM
inverter equipped with both voltage-balancing circuit and
controller, because the hybrid active filter for harmonic
mitigation was described in detail in [13]-[15]. Experimental results obtained from the 200-V downscale model,
along with theoretical results, show that the four split
dc capacitors in the dc link are well balanced in all the
operating conditions, even in such an operating area as
overmodulation. The maximal inductor current flowing
in three-level unidirectional buck and boost choppers used
as the voltage-balancing circuit is about one third of the
rated motor current.

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Rectifier

6.6 kV

LS

PCC

Voltage-balancing
circuit
9 kV
LDC /2

Five-level inverter

6.6 kV
1 MW

LAC

IM

LDC /2
Passive filter

250 kVA

1.3 kV

Active filter
60 kVA

Fig. 1. The 6.6-kV transformerless motor drive equipped with the hybrid active filter, where the five-level inverter uses 4.5-kV IGBTs, and the
active filter uses 1.2-kV IGBTs.

B. The 200-V Laboratory System

II. T RANSFORMERLESS M OTOR D RIVES

A. The 6.6-kV System
Fig. 1 shows the 6.6-kV 1-MW transformerless motor
drive system, in which the diode rectifier is directly
connected to the 6.6-kV industrial power system through
a three-phase ac inductor LAC , and the five-level inverter
is directly connected to the 6.6-kV motor. Note that LS is
the background system inductance seen upstream of the
point of common coupling (PCC). Each of the switching
devices is the 4.5-kV IGBT or a string of three 1.7-kV
IGBTs connected in series. Each of the free-wheeling and
clamping diodes is the 4.5-kV diode. Both 4.5-kV IGBTs
and diode are available from the market.
The hybrid active filter consists of a 250-kVA passive
filter tuned to the seventh harmonic frequency and a 60kVA active filter based on a three-level diode-clamped
converter using 1.2-kV IGBTs. The active filter has a
voltage-balancing controller for the two split dc capacitors, detecting both the dc capacitor voltages, so that no
voltage-balancing circuit is required [15].
The authors of [8] discussed an adjustable-speed motor
drive based on BTB (back-to-back) connection of a fivelevel diode-clamped PWM rectifier and inverter with a
voltage-balancing circuit using two bidirectional buckboost choppers. However, another motor drive with a
front-end diode rectifier for energy savings would not
justify the use of the two bidirectional buck-boost choppers in terms of cost, because the diode rectifier has no
capability of achieving regenerative breaking. Therefore,
this paper introduces a set of three-level unidirectional
buck and boost choppers into such a motor drive as shown
in Fig. 1.

Fig. 2 shows a 200-V, 5.5-kW laboratory motor drive

system that is designed, constructed, and tested in this
paper. The motor is a three-phase four-pole induction
motor which is mechanically coupled with a permanentmagnet synchronous generator, the ac terminals of which
have a three-phase resistive load. The five-level inverter
and the two three-level unidirectional buck and boost
choppers are independently operated at the same carrier
frequency as 3 kHz. Table I summarizes the circuit
parameters of the experimental system.
III. A NALYSIS OF C URRENTS F LOWING INTO T WO
N ODES P1 AND M, AND S WITCHING F REQUENCIES OF
IGBT S
A. Standard Modulation
The dc-link voltage of the laboratory system is 270 V
theoretically. This dc-link voltage is insufficient to drive
the motor with a rated voltage of 200V. Therefore, this
paper uses the third-harmonic sinusoidal overmodulation
[17] that can enhance the output voltage to be close to
200V. Hence, the inverter voltage reference signal e ,
superimposing the third-harmonic sinusoidal signal on it
is given by

e =
2E(sin t + A3 sin 3t),
(1)

A3 =

1.24(M I 1) (1.0 < M I 1.155)

0
(M I 1.0).

(2)

Here, E is the rms value of the inverter line-to-neutral

voltage reference and M I is the modulation index. The
profile of A3 is shown in Fig. 3. Assume that the inverter

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Rectifier
LDC /2

Voltage-balancing
Circuit
270 V
P2
TP1

Inverter
T1

TP2 LP

T2
P1

iLP

200 V
50 Hz

TN1
LDC /2

DSP

4
PWM

(Controller)

(FPGAs)

iLN

0
24
4

The 200-V 5.5-kW laboratory motor drives system where the hybrid active filter is removed.

2I sin(t ).

(3)

The instantaneous current flowing into, or out of, a

node (P1, M or N1) is given as the product of the corresponding duty factors and the motor current. Assuming
that the PWM triangular carrier is much higher than the
maximal inverter output frequency, the duty factor DP 1
and DP M [18] are given by

(VN 2M e < 0)

0
e
(0 e < VP 1M )
DP 1 =
(4)
VP 1M

2
(V

V
),
P 1M
P 2M
VP 1M

1+
=
1

VP 1M
e
VP 1M

Three-phase
resistive load

T8

N2

or motor current iO is given by the following sinusoidal

waveform,
iO

iO

T7

iN 1

A/D
Fig. 2.

T6

(VN 2M e < VN 1M )
(VN 1M e < 0)
(0 e < VP 1M )
(VP 1M e VP 2M ).

(5)

TABLE I
R ATINGS AND CIRCUIT PARAMETERS IN F IG . 2.
Power rating
P
5.5 kW
Line-to-line rms input voltage
VS
200 V
Line-to-line rms output voltage
VO
60-200 V
Output frequency
fO
15-60 Hz
Inductance of ac link inductor
LAC
1.2 mH (5.2% )
Inductance of dc link inductor
LDC
0.48 mH (2.0% )
Resistance of ac link inductor
RAC
2 m (0.03 % )
DC capacitor voltage
Vdc
68 V
DC link voltage
4Vdc
270 V
Split dc capacitor
Cdc
10 mF (68 V)
Unit capacitance constant [16]
H
17 ms (270V)
Chopper inductor
LP = LN
4.2 mH
Carrier frequency
fC
3 kHz
on a three-phase, 50-Hz, 200-V, 5.5-kW, 16-A base

Third-harmonic
amplitude

MI

T5

N1

TN2

vO
IM

iM
LN

200 V
5.5 kW

T4

LAC

DM

T3

iP 1

The dc mean current iP 1 in a steady state can be

defined as an average value of the instantaneous current
flowing into the node P1 over a period of the inverter
output cycle T . Therefore, iP 1 is given by
 T
 T4
6
iP 1 = 3
DP 1 iO dt =
DP 1 iO dt. (6)
T 0
T 0

It should be noted that the dc mean current iP 1 directly

defines the dc mean current iLP flowing into the threelevel buck chopper.

Overmod.

Linear modulation
0.2

0.2
Fig. 3.

0.4
0.6
0.8
Modulation index

1.0

1.2

Standard modulation from (2).

Theoretically, the dc mean current flowing into node

M, iM gets zero, irrespective of the third-harmonic signal
overmodulation, that is,
iM

3
T


0

DM iS dt = 0.

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(7)

TABLE II
S WITCHING FREQUENCIES OF IGBT S WHEN MODULATION INDICES
CHANGE FROM 0.5 TO 1.15 WITH A CARRIER FREQUENCY OF 3 K H Z .

Standard modulation
Level-expanded modulation

fS1 [kHz]
0.00-1.20
0.46-1.20

fS2 [kHz]
0.30-1.50
0.30-1.04

VP 2M
VP 1M

= 0
TV
P 2P 1

0
T/2

VN 2M

B. Level-Expanded Modulation

VP 2M

The five-level diode-clamped converter consists of a

string of eight IGBTs per leg. As shown in Fig 2, the eight
IGBTs are referred to as T1, T2, , and T8 from the top
to the bottom. While the inverter voltage reference e is
higher than VP 1M , T1 and T5 are repetitively switched
on and off, and the other IGBTs are kept unswitched.
Moreover, while 0 < e < VP 1M , T2 and T6 are
switched on and off. Symmetrical operation makes T1,
T4, T5, and T8 have the same switching frequency, and
T2, T3, T6, and T7 have the same switching frequency.
However, the two switching frequencies are unequal.
Therefore, it is reasonable to consider only the switching
frequencies of T1 and T2 as fS1 and fS2 , respectively.
Fig. 4 shows the period of duration, TVP 2P 1 , in which
T1 is switched on and off, when the modulation index is
changed. The switching frequencies fS1 and fS2 depend
directly on TVP 2P 1 . Therefore, they are given by

VP 1M

fS1

TVP 2P 1
fC ,
T

(8)

fC
(9)
fS1 .
2
In the case of the standard modulation defined by
(1) and (2), TVP 2P 1 is in a range of 0 to 0.4T as
shown in Fig. 4. Therefore, fS1 and fS2 are in a range
of 0 to 1.20 kHz and 0.30 to 1.50 kHz, respectively.
This means the five-level inverter has poor voltage-level
usage when it operates at low modulation indices. As the
modulation index decreases, the number of voltage-level
usage decreases from five to three. It is clear that the
number of voltage level is three, instead of five, when
the inverter operates at a modulation index of 0.5 or
lower. This makes T2, T3, T6, and T7 operate with high
switching stress while T1, T4, T5, and T8 go unused.
The authors of [19] proposed the reference rotation
method that rotates the modulation waveform through
different bands of carrier waveforms by using line-toline redundant voltage states. This makes use of all the
levels in the inverter even at low modulation indices.
While the authors of [20] proposed the carrier common
mode dc offset method to increase the voltage-level usage
and reduce harmonic current distortion at low modulation
indices.
In this paper, the authors superimpose a third-harmonic
signal on each of the three-phase inverter voltage reference signals to expand the voltage-level usage. The
negative amplitude of the third-harmonic is chosen because it does not increase the dc mean currents flowing
into nodes P1 and N1. Fig. 5 is a modified inverter
fS2

VN 1M

(a)
e
TV
P 2P 1
T/2

VN 1M
VN 2M
VP 2M
VP 1M

(b)

TV
P 2P 1
T/2

VN 1M
VN 2M

(c)

Fig. 4.
Inverter voltage reference signal from (1). (a) When the
modulation index is 0.5 with A3 = 0. (b) When the modulation index
is 1.0 with A3 = 0. (c) When the modulation index is 1.15 with
A3 = 0.19.

voltage reference signal at modulation index of 0.5, which

is superimposed by a third-harmonic voltage with an
amplitude of 0.45. It is clear that superimposing the
third-harmonic voltage can expand the number of the
level usage from three to five. Here, TVP 2P 1 is 0.153T ,
so that the switching frequencies fS1 and fS2 are 0.46
and 1.04 kHz, respectively.
At a modulation index lower than unity, the amplitude
of the third-harmonic signal, A3 can be defined as low as
possible under the constraints of |A3 | < M I and |A3 | <
(1 M I) to ensure that iP 1 does not become negative
and the peak of the reference signal is not higher than
VP 2M . In this paper, the margin of the constraints is set
to 0.05. Thus, A3 is given by

1.24(M I 1) (1.0 < M I 1.155)

0.9(M I 1) (0.5 M I 1.0)
A3 =

0.9M I
(0 < M I < 0.5).

(10)

Fig. 6 plots the amplitude A3 from (10). Table II compares the switching frequencies of IGBTs between the
standard modulation and the level-expanded modulation.
IV. L ABORATORY S YSTEM C ONTROL
A. Voltage-Balancing Control of the Four Split DC Capacitors
Fig. 7 shows the control block diagram of the threelevel unidirectional buck chopper for achieving voltage
balancing between vP 2P 1 and vP 1M . A proportionalplus-integral (PI) controller for voltage regulation is designed to have a proportional gain of 0.5 A/V, and an

355
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VP 2M
VP 1M

TV
P 2P 1

Fig. 5. Inverter voltage reference signal from (1) at MI = 0.5 with

A3 = 0.45.

Third-harmonic amplitude

0.2

0.4
0.6
0.8
Modulation index

Overmod.

1.0

TP2
TD

TD

Fig. 7. Control diagram of the three-level unidirectional buck chopper

used in the voltage-balancing circuit.

1.2

0.4

Fig. 6.

TP1

Mid-point-voltage balancing control

vP 2M
PI
+

vM N 2

euf
+
Inv.
+
evf
MI
+
V /f
d-q
+
+
Trans. ewf

0.2

0.2

vP 1M

VN 2M

Level-expanded modulation.

Gate signals

iCP
Dead time +
Carrier signal
(3 kHz)

VN 1M

PI

T/2

Comparators

iCP

vP 2P 1

Amplitude
Calculation

Level-expanded modulation from (10).

integral gain of 0.1 A/Vs. A proportional (P) controller

for current regulation is designed to have a proportional
gain of 15.0 V/A. A common 3-kHz triangle carrier signal
and a dead time (TD = 5 s) are used to produce the gate
signals for the buck chopper.
B. Control of the Five-Level Inverter
Fig. 8 shows the control block diagram of the inverter
with the so-called volt-per-hertz control, mid-pointvoltage balancing control, and third-harmonic amplitude
calculation. The third-harmonic is used not only for
overmodulation when the inverter modulation index is
higher than unity, but also for improving the voltage-level
usage at low modulation indices.
In practice, a dc component of iM may be produced by unequal conducting and switching losses, as
well as signal imbalance and resolution issues inherent
in the control circuit including voltage/current sensors.
This makes the mid-point voltage unbalanced. Mid-pointvoltage-balancing control is formed by a PI controller
that has a proportional gain of 0.01 and an integral gain
of 0.01/s. The output of the PI controller superimposes
a dc zero-sequence component on each of the threephase voltage reference signals to balance the mid-point
voltage.
V. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS
A. Operating Waveforms
The output-voltage frequency of the inverter is controlled in a range from 15 to 60 Hz. The three-phase
resistive load in Fig. 2 is adjusted to make the motor
produce the torque required by a pump/blower-like load,
that is, the output power is proportional to a cubic of

Fig. 8.

eu
ev
ew

Third
Harmonic
Amp.
Generator

Control block diagram of the inverter.

the rotating speed. Figs. 9 and 10 clarify that the uphase inverter output voltage with respect to point M,
vOuM is a five-level waveform, and the inverter line-toline voltage vOuv is a nine-level waveform as expected.
These are inherent in the five-level inverter when the
inverter modulation index is higher than 0.5.
Figs. 9 to 11 show that the u-phase output current iOu
looks like almost sinusoidal waveforms in all conditions.
The THD (total harmonic distortion) of iOu in Fig. 9 is
1.9%, thus bringing low torque ripple to the induction
motor. Table III summarizes the measured current THD
(total harmonic distortion) values and harmonic components of iOu , where each value is in a ratio with respect
to the fundamental current.
Fig. 11 compares experimental results when the inverter modulation index and the output frequency are
0.5 and 25 Hz, respectively, where (a) is in the standard
modulation while (b) is in the level-expanded modulation.
It is clear that the number of voltage level in Fig. 11 (a)
is three while that in Fig. 11 (b) is five. Moreover, Fig 12
shows that the motor current THD in the level-expanded
modulation is lower than that in the standard modulation.
B. The Voltage-Balancing Circuit
The dc mean inductor currents iLP and iLN are almost
the same. Therefore, it is reasonable to consider only iLP .
Fig. 13 shows theoretical and experimental results in a
range of the inverter modulation index from 0.3 to 1.15.
When the inverter modulation index is 0.9, that is, the
inverter output frequency is 40 Hz, the dc mean inductor

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vOuM

[V]
vOuv

[V]
iOu

[A]

200

vOuM

[V]

-200
300

vOuv

[V]

-300
40

iOu

[A]

-40
vP 2N 2 300
[V] 250

iLP

-200
300
0
-300
40
0

200
150

vP 2M
vP 1M

vN 1M

[V]

vN 2M

-150
10

iLP

[A]
iLN

-40
vP 2N 2 300
[V] 250

200
150

[V]

200

vP 2M

vP 1M

vN 1M
vN 2M

-150
10

[A]
0
10

iLN

[A]

0
10

[A]
0

0
10 ms

10 ms

Fig. 9. Experimental waveforms at inverter modulation index 1.15,

output power 4.7 kW, and output frequency 57.5 Hz.
TABLE III
C URRENT THD AND HARMONIC CURRENTS OF iOu
190 V, 4.7 K W, EXPRESSED AS %

iOu

THD
1.9

2nd
1.8

3rd
0.0

4th
0.1

5th
0.2

7th
0.1

AT

11th
0.0

Fig. 10. Experimental waveforms with level-expanded modulation

at inverter modulation index 0.8, output power 1.6 kW, and output
frequency 40 Hz.

57.5 H Z ,

in overmodulation. The proposed level-expanded modulation contributes to reducing the switching frequencies
of the IGBTs.

40th
0.0

current iLP of the level-expanded modulation reaches its

maximal current of 5.6 A or 35% of the rated current 16
A.
Figs. 9 to 11 show that the four split dc capacitor
voltages of vP 2P 1 , vP 1M , vM N 1 , and vN 1N 2 are
well balanced in all conditions. The voltage ripples of
vP 2M and vP 1M stay within 2.4% and 2.8%,
respectively.
VI. C ONCLUSION
This paper has described a 6.6-kV transformerless
five-level diode-clamped PWM inverter with a diode
rectifier at the front end, which has been intended for
pump/blower drives. A voltage-balancing circuit for four
split-dc capacitors, the effect of overmodulation, and the
mid-point voltage control have been verified by experiment. Moreover, voltage-level usage at low modulation
indices is easily expanded or improved by superimposing a third-harmonic signal on each of the threephase inverter voltage reference signals. This brings lower
switching frequencies to the IGBTs. Experimental results
have confirmed that the combination of the voltagebalancing circuit using a set of three-level unidirectional
buck and boost choppers with a voltage-balancing controller works properly in any operating conditions, even

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Authorized licensed use limited to: GOVERNMENT COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY. Downloaded on July 24, 2009 at 01:34 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.

vOuM

200

[V]
vOuv

vOuv

iOu

-40
vP 2N 2 300
[V] 250

-300
40
0

200
150

vP 2M
vP 1M

[V]

vN 1M
vN 2M

-150
10

iLP

[A]
iLN

-40
vP 2N 2 300
[V] 250

200
150

iLP

-200
300

[A]

[V]

[V]

-300
40

[A]

200

[V]

-200
300

[V]
iOu

vOuM

vP 2M

vP 1M

vN 1M
vN 2M

-150
10

[A]
0
10

0
10

iLN

[A]

[A]
0

(a)

10 ms

10 ms

(b)

:Level-expanded modulation

:Standard modulation

4
2
0

0.4

0.5

0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0

Inverter modulation index

1.1

1.15

10

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: Theory Standard

: iLP Standard

: Theory Level-expanded

: iLP Level-expanded

5.0

4.7 kW
P

5
2.5

iLP
1.15/57.5
0
0.3/15

Fig. 12. Output current THD when the inverter modulation index
changes from 0.5 to 1.15 with standard modulation and level-expanded
modulation.

: Output power

Fig. 13.

Output power [kW]

DC mean chopper current [A]

Total harmonic distortion [%]

Fig. 11. Experimental waveforms at inverter modulation index 0.5, output power 390 W, and output frequency 25 Hz. (a) Standard modulation.
(b) Level-expanded modulation.

0
0.6/30
0.8/40
1.0/50
1.2/60
Modulation index/output frequency [Hz1 ]

DC mean chopper currents and inverter modulation index.

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