Review of fault diagnosis and fault-tolerant control for modular multilevel converter of HVDC

This review focuses on faults in Modular Multilevel Converter (MMC) for use in high voltage direct current (HVDC) systems by analyzing the vulnerable spots and failure mechanism from device to system and illustrating the control & protection methods under failure condition. At the beginning, several typical topologies of MMC-HVDC systems are presented. Then fault types such as capacitor voltage unbalance, unbalance between upper and lower arm voltage are analyzed and the corresponding fault detection and diagnosis approaches are explained. In addition, more attention is dedicated to control strategies, when running in MMC faults or grid faults. This paper ends up with a discussion of other opportunities for future development.