Full Energy Management of EO-AAC: Toward a Dynamic Equivalence with MMC

Energy management in modular type converters constitutes a key aspect of their operational stability. This paper introduces a full energy management structure for the Extended Overlap-Alternate Arm Converter (EO-AAC) ensuring both equal energy distribution across all six stacks and the maintaining of ripple-free DC current during steady state. The performance of the control structure against active power step events is validated by detailed simulations using EMTP-RV software. Moreover, the full energy management allows the EO-AAC to have an equivalent controllability to Modular Multilevel Converter (MMC) through only two conducting stacks in overlap mode ensuring the power balance. From this observation, it is demonstrated that the use of control strategy like the virtual capacitor to support HVDC system, originally designed for MMC, is possible. Gathering all these controllers leads to a general conclusion which is the dynamic equivalence between EO-AAC and MMC.