The 2014 International Power Electronics Conference

Modelling, Design and Control of Grid Connected

Converter for High Altitude Wind Power
Application
Jeevan Adhikari, Student Member, IEEE, Akshay K. Rathore, Senior Member, IEEE S K Panda, Senior Member, IEEE
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore

Abstract-High altitude wind based renewable energy gen

erating system can be connected to a distribution level grid.
The generated power at high altitude above the ground is
transmitted at medium voltage DC to the ground based station.
Thus, transmitted power is interfaced with the distribution
grid at the ground station.

This paper presents the power

illustrated in Fig. 2. The PEC topology consists of a rectifier

and a DC-DC converter in an air-borne unit and a grid
connected converter at the ground based station. Detail study
of DC-DC converters for blimp supported HAWP application
is explained in [7], [8].

electronic converter (PEC) rated at 100 kW HAWP application

that converts medium voltage DC to three phase distribution
level grid voltage. The proposed converter topology consists of
a neutral point clamped (NPC) three level DC-DC converter
followed by three phase grid connected two level inverter. The
designed power electronic converter uses four high voltage (HV)
rating power semiconductor switches for buck converter before
inversion to three phase AC distribution voltages. The active and
passive components selection for two stage conversion is presented
in the paper. The grid side current is controlled using quadrature
axes current control method and inverter switches are switched
using space vector modulation (SVM) technique. Simulations of
the proposed PEC and control of the inverter are carried out
using software programs PSIM-9 and MATLAB. The designed
converter converts the 8 kV DC transmission voltage to 415 V
grid side voltage with current total harmonic distortion (THD)
of about 1.2%.

Key

Words: High altitude wind power (HAWP), three

Fig.

1: A prototype of HAWP generating system develope d by

Altaeros Energy [6]

level neutral point clamped (NPC) DC-DC converter, grid

connected inverter, total harmonic distortion (THD)
I.

Air-borne Turbine

INTRODUCTION

Wind and solar energy are two major renewable energy

sources those have potential to reduce the number of fossil
fuel based power generating system. Solar power has low
energy density and conventional wind power (CWP) harvest
ing system has low capacity factor and needs huge infra
structure constructions [1], [2]. High altitude wind power
(HAWP) harvesting system generates wind power at low cost
and high capacity factor [3], [4]. HAWP harvesting system
using light gas filled blimp/aerostat is enlightened in [3], [5].
Fig 1 shows a prototype of blimp supported HAWP generation
system developed by Altaeros Energy [6]. A light weight air
borne wind turbine drives a permanent magnet synchronous
generator (PMSG) at high altitude above the ground. Thus,
the generated power is transformed into medium voltage DC
for efficient transmission and to minimize the weight of the
power transmission cable. An electro-mechanical tether is used
to transmit power to the ground based station where it is
interfaced with a distribution grid. Power electronic converter
(PEC) topology for harvesting HAWP using blimp/aerostat is

978-1-4799-2705-0/14/$31.00 2014 IEEE

Air-borne PECs

VDC transmissi n

J.r;...
...;

AC/DC

DC/DC

Tether

Ground based Station

'-----------------------
-..."...-

Air-borne Unit

Fig. 2: Electrical architecture for harvesting high altitu de win d power

generating system

Various inverter topologies and their design, modelling and

limitations are explained in [9]- [10] for industrial use. The
multi-level inverters explained in [9]- [10] are used to drive
high power motor drive system, compressor pumps and other
electrical loads. Grid connected inverters used for wind farms
are described in [11]- [14]. In [11]- [14], and the PECs
designed for different power level for on-shore/off-shore wind
farms. The close loop current control using different modu
lation techniques for the designed converter are explained as

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The 2014 International Power Electronics Conference

well. However, grid connected converter for HAWP has not
been explored yet. In contrast to conventional inverters, the
converters for HAWP should be capable of converting medium
voltage DC to three phase distribution level grid voltages. For
100 kW HAWP application, optimal transmission voltage is 8
kV [4] which gives maximum power-to-weight (PIW) ratio for
an air-borne unit. Transmission voltage at the ground station
acts as DC link voltage for the converter which is interfaced to
distribution grid voltage at 415 V (RMS line-line). A HAWP
harvesting system considered in the paper is a distributed
renewable generation system connected to the distribution grid.

Power Rating: 100 kW

Input Voltage: 8000 V (MV DC transmission voltage)
Intermediate DC link voltage to inverter: 700 V
Output Voltage: 415 V (L-L RMS)
The proposed converter consists of multilevel isolated buck
converter followed by two level inverter. Transforming 8000
V to 700 V using an isolated full bridge DC-DC converter
requires series connection of the switches (with high voltage
rating) in the primary side in order to withstand high input
voltage. The series connections of switches (high voltage
rating) reduce the reliability of the converter and increase
switching and conduction losses. In addition, higher rating
switches limit the switching frequency of the converter. So,
three level ZVS based isolated buck converter is better choice
which reduces the switch voltage stress to half of the input
voltage and increases the switching frequency due to soft
switching characteristics. A three level isolated buck converter
as explained in [17] is used for step down operation as shown
in the Fig. 4.

Fig. 3: The converter topology for interfacing HAWP to distribution

gri d

The paper introduces the converter that transforms 8 kV DC

link voltage to 415 V grid voltage connected to three phase
power distribution system. The proposed converter consists
of three level zero voltage switching (ZVS) isolated DC-DC
converter and two level SVM inverter. The isolation provided
by DC-DC converter protects the grid side power system
from unwanted power signals from lightening. The converter
consists of four high voltage switches due to the use of three
level isolated buck converter instead of using isolated full
bridge DC-DC buck converter. Two level inverter is used to
transform the output of 3-level buck converter into 3-phase
AC with controlled grid side current. The inverter is switched
using SVM technique where total harmonic distortion (THD)
of the grid side current lies within industrial standard. The
paper explains the design of the converter, selection of de
vices depending on the rating of the switches and control of
grid connected inverter to get current distortion with in the
permissible limits. Fig. 3 shows the proposed converter for
HAWP application for grid interface.
The description and design of the converter are given in
Sections II and III. Sections IV and V sUlmnarize the modeling
and the control of the converter. Switching strategy for the
inverters with space vector modulation is explained in Section
VI. Simulation results to verify the design of the converter is
shown in Section VII.
II.

DESCRIPTION OF T H E CONV ERTER

The specifications of the ground based converter are:

Fig. 4: NPC three level DC-DC converter for HAWP

The input voltage to the inverter is reduced to 700 V using

multilevel buck converter. This allows the use of two level
SVM inverter which gives reduced THD, increased switch
ing frequency and reduced filtering requirements. Different
multilevel inverters are explained in [9]- [10] which suffer
hardware design difficulty, voltage balancing issues etc. Two
level inverter has reduced numbers of switches, capacitors and
diodes, so use of multilevel inverter is skipped by reducing DC
link voltage to a lower value. Schematic circuit diagram for
two level inverter for HAWP application is shown in Fig. 5.
III.

DESIGN OF T H E CONV ERTER

This section gives ratings of switches, diodes and passive

components for three level DC-DC converter and two level
inverter. Table I gives the components' ratings for DC-DC
converters for buck operation. The devices selected for step
down operation are shown in Table II. The use of three
level topology reduces the switch stress and capacitor voltage
stress to half. The complete buck operations using multilevel

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The 2014 International Power Electronics Conference

TABLE II: Name of switch an d dio de selecte d multilevel isolate d
DC-DC buck operation
Primary Side

Secondary Side

FZ200R65KF2

IGBT Module

6600 V

Voltage
Clamp Diode

DD250S65K3
6500 V

Voltage

BSM300GA120DN2

Rectifier diode
Voltage

1200 V

TABLE III: 1\vo level inverter devices ratings

Inverter switch
Voltage (V)

700

RMS

135

current (A)

Fig. 5: 1\vo level inverter for interfacing HAWP to distribution gri d

184

Peak
current (A)

topology is explained in [17]. The conduction of antiparallel

diode just before turning on the switch facilitates ZVS of all
HV switches.
The DC-DC converter uses four Infenion IGBT
(FZ200R65KF2) and two split input capacitors. The
three level neutral point clamped topology eliminates series
connection of HV switches. Similar step down operation
can be done using full bridge isolated DC-DC converter
which requires eight (4*2) FZ200R65KF2 switches with HF
transformer.
TABLE I: Device rating for multilevel isolate d DC-DC buck operation
Parameters

Rating

Parameters

Rating

Switch

4000

Rectifier diode

700

voltage (V)
85

Rectifier diode

35

Rectifier diode

.
.
C dVdc =ts
- tg
Tt

current (A)

280

4000

voltage (V)

700

Filter capacitor
voltage (V)

Av. clamp diode

25

Filter capacitance

current (A)

Inductor peak

Peak clamp diode

current (V)

(mF)

HF transformer

current (A)
Maximum

8000

Input capacitor

inductor (V)

voltage (V)

Leakage

332

inductance (uH)

Filter

Turns ratio

3.42: I

13.3
85
105

KVA

voltage across

Input capacitance (uF)

ig

(2)

where Ps is generated output power by an air-borne electric

generator which is equal to electromagnetic power (Pe =
Tews), Te is electrical torque of the generator, Ws is angular
frequency of rotation of the air-borne turbine.
The voltage equation per phase between the inverter leg and
the grid is given by:

160

avo current (A)

Clamp diode

(1)

where Vdc is DC link voltage, is is current of DC link after

buck converter, ig is current of DC link at the grid side and
C is the DC link capacitance.
Considering that the grid side inverter does not consume
power, eqn 1 can be expressed as:
C dVdC = Ps
dt
Vdc

peak current (A)

current (A)
Av. switch

FS200R12KT3

DC link capacitor stabilizes the DC link voltage. Current

flowing through the DC link capacitor is given by:

voltage (V)

Peak switch

4000

ea = Va

625
3

inductance (mH)

Two level inverter interfaces 700 V dc link voltage to 415

V AC grid. The inverter consists of 3 legs with 2 switches
in each leg. Ratings of the switches are given in Table III
along with the selected modules' details. Infenion fast IGBT
modules are selected for the inverter application.
IV.

Selected module

MODELING OF GRID SIDE INV ERTER

The schematic diagram of grid side converter is shown in

Fig 3. Modelling of the grid side converter is carried out by
modelling the DC link side and grid connected inverter.

+ tRa +

dia
La dt

(3)

where ea is grid side phase voltage, Va is output voltage of

one of the leg of inverter, La and Ra are equivalent series
inductance and resistance between grid and inverter leg per
phase.
Similar voltage equations can be written for phase-b and
phase-c as expressed in eqn. 3. Three rotating vectors can be
transformed into two stationary vectors by 0: - (3 transforma
tion. The stationary vectors are transformed into rotating d - q
frame by park transformation. Three phase grid voltages (ea,
eb and ea) are represented by single rotating voltage es, which
rotates at angle e along the rotating frame. es is aligned along
d-axis of rotating frame which results the q-axis component
of rotating voltage zero. The d - q transformation of three

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The 2014 International Power Electronics Conference

v'
q

voltage equations results the following equations:

Vd

did
di

Ld
Vq

.
.
RsZd - wrLqzq

diq
Lq di

.
Rszq

es

(4)

.
WrLdZd

(5)

where Vd and Vq are quadrature axes voltages of the inverter,

Ld and Lq are the inductances in d - q axes, id and iq are the
currents in d - q frame, Wr is angular frequency of grid.
Active power flow through the inverter is controlled by d
axis current control and reactive power is controlled by q-axis
current. The equations for active (P) and reactive (Q) power
are given by:
(6)

(7)
Thus, P can be controlled by Id and Q can be controlled
by Iq as expressed in eqns. 6 and 7.
V.

CONTROL OF GRID SIDE INV ERTER

The converter consists of two stages: buck stage and inver

sion stage. The buck operation is controlled to maintain DC
link voltage to reference DC link voltage determined by the
generated power by HAWP system. The grid side inversion is
controlled using quadrature current control method and it is
carried out for the following purposes:
1) Regulation of DC link voltage which value should
be greater than L-L grid voltage. DC link voltage is
controlled by controlling d-axis current.
2) Control of reactive power flowing into the grid by
controlling the q-axis current.

Q'

Fig. 7: Control block diagram of q-axis current generating Vq

V I.

SWITCH ING OF GRID SIDE T W O LEV EL INV ERTER

Space vector modulation has been extensively used for high

power and high voltage application. SVM utilizes the DC
link voltage better than sine PWM method of switching and
generates low current ripple. Moreover, implementation of
SVM in digital signal processor (DSP) is easier than other
modulation techniques [15]- [16]. In two level inverter, eight
different switching vectors are possible (six active vectors and
two zero vectors).
V II.

SIMULATION RESULTS

The 3-level NPC DC-DC converter of the proposed grid

connected converter allows zero voltage switching of the
IGBT switches (51 - 54) due to the conduction of anti
parallel diode (Dl - D4) just before turning on IGBTs. The
ZVS operations of switches are illustrated in Fig. 8. Soft
switching characteristic enables the converter to operate at
higher switching frequency that reduces the size of magnetic
used. The DC-DC converter transforms 8 kV transmission
voltage into 700 V DC link voltage as demonstrated in Fig. 9.

Grid side phase voltages are sensed and fed into phase lock
loop (PLL) to get the orientation of the rotating voltage vector.
Three grid side currents are converted into corresponding
d - q axis currents using the angle obtained from PLL. Using
quadrature axes currents; quadrature axes voltages Vd and Vq
are calculated as shown in Fig 6 and 7.

Switch current

Switch voltage (scaled down by 50)

80
60
40
20

ZVS during turn-o

-20
0.09102

0.09104

0.09106

0.09108

0.0911

0.09112

0.09114

Time (s)

Fig. 8: Switch transient of three level DC-DC converter

v'
d
1000
800

Scaled down DC transmission voltage (V)

DC-DC

600

converter output voltage (V)

400

Fig. 6: Control block diagram of d-axis current generating Vd

200

The quadrature axis converter voltages are converted into

a - b - c frame by inverse park transformation. Three reference
voltages Va, Vb and Vc are used to generate six switching
signals using space vector techniques.

1778

0.01

0.012

0.014
Time (5)

0.016

Fig. 9: Input/output voltages of three level DC-DC converter

The 2014 International Power Electronics Conference

Fig. 10: Complete control diagram of gri d si de inverter in HAWP application

The output of the DC-DC converter is fed to an inverter for

interfacing HAWP with distribution grid. The complete block
diagram for interfacing the grid and inverter is shown in Fig
10. Two level inverter is controlled using d - q current control
strategy and switched using SVM technique. Fig. lla shows
the three phase sinusoidal voltage at grid side while slightly
distorted grid side current is pointed out in Fig lIb. However,
injected grid side current is roughly sinusoidal.

changing the reference current Iq in the controller loop when

grid demands reactive power from the converter.

400 ,----..-----,,_,---_,---_,

>

-;
"
OJ

:=---
-4 '-:------::-':-:----::-'-:-------=-"
0.4
0.45
0.5
.3
0.35

200

Time

"
"0
iii
"0

<:5

Fig. 12: Converter injecting the power into the gri d at unity power
factor
-200

0.32

0.34

Time

0.36

0.38

0.4

Fig 13 and 14 show active and reactive power drawn by the

distribution grid. The grid side rotating voltage phasor Vs is
aligned along with Vd. So, the reactive power extracted by the
grid is zero.

(a)

'" 100

()
"
"0
:J

(jj

"0

(9

Ff

-100

ff..
Time

-50

Fig. 1 1: Gri d si de phase voltage an d phase current of gri d connecte d

inverter for HAWP

0.02

0.04

0.06

0.08

0.1

time

0.12

0.14

0.16

0.18

0.2

Fig. 13: Active power flowing to the gri d from HAWP system

The converter switching signals are controlled to maintain

unity power factor of the drawn current as shown in the Fig
12. However, reactive power can be injected into the grid

Since the HAWP generating system is interfaced into the

distribution grid, the converter should not inject non-linear

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The 2014 International Power Electronics Conference

_2
'

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cr:

;;

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Fig. 14: Reactive power flowing to the gri d from HAWP system

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injected current harmonics with in the industrial standard limit.
Fig 15 shows the harmonic spectrum of grid side current.
Fifth, seventh and eleventh harmonics are injected into the grid
current, but the value of total harmonic distortion is within the
industrial limit. The value of RMS phase current drawn by the
grid is approximately 130 A with total harmonic distortion of
1.2%.

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CONCLUSION

interface for alternative energy sources with unified constant-frequency

HAWP generating systems can be interfaced into the distri

bution grid as a source of renewable generation. The converter
proposed in the paper is used to connect 8 kV DC transmission
line of HAWP system to a 415 V distribution grid. The
paper has presented the design of the converter with cascaded
isolated three level DC-DC converter followed by two level
space vector modulated inverter. Design and description of 3level DC-DC converter and 2-level inverter has been carried
out in Sections II and III. Current and voltage ratings of
the active and passive devices for the complete converter are
listed. In addition, for the calculated ratings suitable power
semiconductor device modules are itemized in the paper. The
converter uses four high voltage rating switches during buck
operating. The use of buck converter facilitates the use of low
voltage rating IGBT switches for two level inversion operation.
The inverter is controlled using quadrature current control
method and switched using SVM techniques. The proposed
converter delivers 100 kW active power to the grid at unity
power factor with grid side current THD of 1.2%.

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