New trends and topologies for high power industrial applications: The multilevel converters solution

Abstract

This paper reviews briefly the current scenarios where power electronics converters are being applied. In the paper, the main focus moves towards the high power applications, reviewing the different alternatives and topologies. The multilevel approach is studied in more depth, showing that is a good solution to the challenges that medium voltage-high power applications pose. Several industry examples are introduced and the most suitable modulation techniques for multilevel high power converters are explained. Among them, the recent selective harmonic mitigation method appears as a good solution to achieve a high performance. Finally the conclusions are addressed.