A Comparative Study of Three Classic Five-Level Inverters Connected to the Power Grid

Recently, the power quality issue becomes quite a serious problem when an electrical conversion energy system is connected to the grid. Thus, multilevel inverters are intensively employed due to their role in reducing Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) with a small output filter size. This work is focused on a comparative analysis between the most common five-level (5L) inverters: the Neutral Point Clamp (NPC), the Flying Capacitors (FC) and the Cascade H-Bridge (CHB) multilevel inverter. The comparison criteria are based on the conduction and the switching losses as well as the current rating and the voltage stress in all switching devices. The obtained comparison results are performed through a simulation study under Matlab/Simulink environment where each structure of the considered 5L inverters is connected to the same grid.