A new hybrid multilevel thyristor-based DC-DC converter

The rapid growth in HVDC grids is becoming inevitable for long-distance power transmission. Therefore, the idea of interconnection between the point-to-point links becomes essential. However, these point-to-point connections face several challenges such as the requirement of DC fault blocking capability, interfacing of different grounding schemes, offering multi-vendor interoperability, and difficulty to achieve high DC voltage stepping. DC-DC converters are considered the optimum solution to tackle these challenges in DC grids interconnection. In this paper, a new hybrid modular DC-DC converter is proposed that achieves a low number of semiconductors, low losses, and cost in comparison to other DC-DC converters due to the utilization of thyristors. The new DC-DC converter consists of two hybrid MMC bridges connected through an isolating transformer. Each MMC bridge is comprised of half bridge submodules and bidirectional thyristors. Detailed mathematical analysis, design, and control are illustrated. A comparison is carried out between different topologies in terms of semiconductor count, power loss, and cost. Also, both simulation model and experimental test rig are built to validate the proposed hybrid modular DC-DC converter under different scenarios. Finally, another variant of the hybrid-thyristor based converter (version two) is proposed for multiport DC-Hub application to achieve DC fault blocking without turning off all connected bridges.