This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been
fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TIA.2019.2910790, IEEE
Transactions on Industry Applications
Modeling and Suppression of Circulating Currents for
Multi-Paralleled Three-Level T-Type Inverters
Alian Chen, Member, IEEE, Zicheng Zhang, Xiangyang Xing, Member, IEEE,
Ke Li, Chunshui Du, Member, IEEE, Chenghui Zhang, Senor Member, IEEE
Abstract—Paralleled inverters have the merits of high
power rating, improved reliability and convenient
maintenance. However, zero-sequence circulating current
(ZSCC) will occur and lead to current distortion and
system loss. The ZSCC control is more complicated when
three-level topology is utilized and paralleled number is
increased. Therefore, this paper proposes a simplified
ZSCC suppression scheme for multi-paralleled three-level
T-type inverters (3LT2Is). A novel equivalent model is
developed and the ZSCC controller based on the new
model is easier to implement. Thus, the number of
paralleled inverters can be increased without complicating
the control scheme and the inverters could be switched on
or off optionally. Besides, Feed-Forward (FF) strategy is
adopted to eliminate the ZSCC spikes caused by
symmetrical three-level space vector modulation (SVM).
The effectiveness of the proposed control scheme is
verified by both simulation and experimental results.
Index Terms— paralleled inverters, zero-sequence
circulating current (ZSCC), T-type three-level inverters (3LT2Is),
feed forward (FF), space vector modulation (SVM)
I. INTRODUCTION
T HREE-LEVEL inverters have been widely utilized in
recent years due to their merits of superior output voltage
quality and high power rating [1]-[3]. To improve the
efficiency of three-level inverters, several topologies have
 ZSCC controllers are not unified among paralleled inverters
Manuscript received June 15, 2018; revised October 3, 2018;
accepted March 11, 2019. Paper 2018-IPCC-0532.R1, presented at
the 2017 IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE),
Cincinnati, USA, Oct. 1–5, and approved for publication in the IEEE
TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS by the
Industrial Power Converter Committee of the IEEE Industry
Applications Society. This work was supported in part by the
National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 51877128,
in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under
Grant 61527809, and in part by the Foundation for Innovative
Research Groups of National Science Foundation of China under
Grant 61821004. (Corresponding author: Alian Chen.)
The authors are with the School of Control Science and Engineerin
g, Shandong University, Jinan 250061, China (e-mail: chenalian@sd
u.edu.cn; 18769785257@163.com; xxy198513@163.com; like@sdu.
edu.cn; duchsh@sdu.edu.cn; zchui@sdu.edu.cn).

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been proposed by researchers. In particular, the topology of
three-level T-type inverter (3LT2I) has been proposed for low-
voltage application and it has the highest efficiency among the
two-level, T-type and neutral-point clamped (NPC) inverters
for the medium switching frequency (4-30kHz) [4]-[10].
With the increased penetration of renewable energy in the
utility grid, the topology of paralleled inverters is commonly
used in high power applications driven by its high power
rating, improved efficiency and reliability. However, zero-
sequence circulating current (ZSCC) will be generated with
different hardware parameters or control effect. The ZSCC
will lead to the distortion of output current and the reduction
of the system efficiency. Consequently, the suppression of
ZSCC has become a focus recently [11]-[13].
In two-level paralleled inverters, the ZSCC suppression can
be classified as passive methods, control methods, and
modulation methods. The ZSCC can be suppressed by the
isolated transformer. However, the cost of the paralleled
inverter system will be increased. In order to deal with the
problem, the control methods were used. A PI control method
was proposed to adjust the zero vectors in the conventional
space vector modulation (SVM) [14]. The deadbeat control
scheme was proposed for ZSCC suppression under unequal
currents and unequal filter inductances [15]. The nonlinear
control scheme was presented to control the ZSCC [16], [17].
However, this method was difficult to realize in practical
application. The PI regulator with Feed-Forward (FF) was
proposed in [18]. The strategy of modifying the original
current references was proposed in [19]. Nevertheless, the
and have to be executed in sequence. Therefore, these
methods will become complicated and spend more time as the
number of paralleled inverter increases. Selective harmonic
elimination (SHE) PWM was proposed to eliminate the triple
harmonics [20]. A modified discontinuous PWM (DPWM)
was proposed to mitigate the ZSCC and reduce the switching
loss [21]. The modified zero common mode voltage (CMV)
modulation scheme was proposed, which can keep volt-
seconds balance in whole fundamental period and mitigate the
current jump in phase-leg currents [22]. The ZSCC problem
will be lessened with sinusoidal pulse width modulation
(SPWM) but the modulation index is low which limits the
usage of the DC link voltage [23].
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Transactions on Industry Applications

In three-level parallel inverters, a PI regulator is commonly

used for ZSCC suppression [24], [25]. However, the
performance of PI regulator will degrade with unequal
reference currents or unequal filter inductors. Moreover,
ZSCC spikes will be generated in three-level paralleled
inverters with the symmetrical space vector modulation due to
the change of seven-segment sequence. To eliminate the
ZSCC spikes, the deadbeat controller is adopted in [26] and
two open-loop methods were proposed for multi-paralleled
system which are relatively easy to implement in [27], [28].
However, these methods have weak stability and low
robustness without close-loop control. Model prediction
method can be effective strategy for circulating currents 
Fig. 1. Topology of T-type inverter.
suppression, although uncertain switching frequency affects
the selection of inductors [29], [30]. The ZSCC problem will
be lessened with hybrid modulation strategy, but reduced the
modulation index [31], [32].
To solve the conflict between easy implementation and
accurate ZSCC suppression, this paper proposes a novel
equivalent model for multi-paralleled system that makes the
controller easier to design. Therefore, the main contributions
of this paper include:
1) A novel equivalent model is developed. The ZSCC
controller based on the new model is easier to implement.
Thus, the rest (M-1) inverters have the same ZSCC controller
and could be switched on or off optionally which makes the
system more flexible.
2) Feed-Forward strategy is adopted to eliminate the ZSCC 
spikes caused by symmetrical three-level space vector Fig. 2. Three-paralleled inverter system.
modulation.
output voltages based on CBPWM are represented as:
II. MODELING OF THREE-PARALLELED INVERTER SYSTEM Vdc V
uaj  maj = dc (maj  mzj )
The topology of 3LT2Is and three-paralleled system are 2 2
shown in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2, respectively. The neutral point (NP) V V
of the DC-link is taken as the reference point. ubj  dc mbj = dc (mbj  mzj ) (2)
2 2
As shown in Fig. 2, the mathematical models of each
Vdc Vdc 
inverter are derived as ucj  mcj = (mcj  mzj )
2 2
iaj  iaj  uaj  ea  uOjn 
d       where m*aj, m*bj, m*cj are the sinusoidal reference modulation
L j ibj    R j ibj   ubj  eb  uOjn  (1) waveform generated by the current controller; maj, mbj, mcj are
dt
 icj   icj   ucj  ec  uOjn  the modified modulation waveform for symmetrical SVM; mzj
     
is the zero sequence component.
where j=1,2,3 refers to jth inverter; Lj and Rj are the The expression of mzj is given as:
inductance and equivalent series resistance of the filter
1
inductors; uaj, ubj, ucj are the output voltages of the inverters. mzj = [1  max(maj  kaj , mbj  kbj , mcj  kcj )
The space vector diagram of three-level inverter is shown in 2
Fig. 3. There are six large vectors, six medium vectors, twelve  min(maj  kaj , mbj  kbj , mcj  kcj )] (3)
small vectors and three zero vectors divided based on their
 0 mxj  0

magnitude. The voltage vectors and corresponding switching k xj   
x  a, b, c
states are shown in Table I. Symmetrical SVM is commonly  1 mxj  0
used as the modulation method for three-level inverters [33]-
[35]. This modulation scheme can be easily implemented by In order to analyze the influence of the NP unbalance to the
carrier based PWM (CBPWM) with zero-sequence injection ZSCC, equation (2) is revised as follow under unbalanced NP
[36], [37]. Assume that the NP potential is balanced, the condition:

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where fzj is an intermediate variable for convenient derivation.

The mathematical model of ZSCC described in equation (5)
contains the common mode voltage uOjn which is difficult to
measure or calculate, thus this equation is not suitable for
controller design. The common voltages uOjn can be eliminated
by subtracting the ZSCC equation of the first inverter from the
other two equations, leading to:

 diz 2 di
 L2  L1 z1   R2iz 2 +R1iz1  u z 2  u z1
 dt dt
 (7)
 L diz 3  L diz1   R i +R i  u  u


3
dt
1
dt
3 z3 1 z1 z3 z1

As shown in Fig. 2, it can be seen that the sum of the

ZSCCs of three inverters is zero, according to the kirchhoff's
law. That is:

Fig. 3. Space vector diagram of three-level inverter. iz1  iz 2  iz 3  0 (8)
TABLE I Based on equation (7) and equation (8), the completed
VOLTAGE VECTORS AND CORRESPONDING SWITCHING STATES mathematical model of the three-paralleled inverter system is
Vector Magnitude Switching State established as:
Zero vector 0 [PPP] [OOO] [NNN]
P-type N-type  iz1   iz1   u z1 
d  
iz 2   A1 B1 iz 2   A1 C1 u z 2 
 
[POO] [ONN] 1 1
[PPO] [OON]
dt 
iz 3   iz 3   u z 3 
1
Small vector Vdc [OPO] [NON]
3
[OPP] [NOO] (9)
[POP] [ONO]  iz1   mz1   f z1 
 A11 B1 iz 2   Vdc A11C1  mz 2  + VA11C1  f z 2 
[OOP] [NNO] 3 3
Medium [PON] [OPN] [NPO] 2 2
iz 3   mz 3   f z 3 
3
Vdc
vector 3 [NOP] [ONP] [PNO]
2
Vdc
[PNN] [PPN] [NPN]
Large vector 3 [NPP] [NNP] [PNP]
where the coefficient matrix A1, B1, C1 are defined as:
   L1 L2 0  R1  R2 0 
V  V A1    L1 0 L3  ，B1   R1 0  R3  ，
uxj  dc mxj +sign(mxj ) mxj (4)
2 2  L1 L1 L1   0 0 0  (10)
where x=a, b, c represents three-phase system, sign(.) is the  1 1 0 
sign function, ∆V=VP-VN represents the difference of the upper C1 =  1 0 1 
capacitor voltage VP and the lower capacitor voltage VN.  0 0 0 
The model of ZSCC is derived by summing up the three
As shown in equation (8), there are actually two
equations in (1):
independent state variables among three ZSCCs, therefore, the
dizj model can be simplified as:
Lj   R j izj  uzj  ez  3uOjn (5)
dt  mz1 
d  iz 2  1  iz 2  3 1  
where izj is the circulating current, izj= iaj + ibj + icj; uzj is the  i    A2 B2  i   Vdc A2 C 2  mz 2 
dt  z 3   z3  2
zero sequence voltage, uzj= uaj + ubj + ucj; ez is the sum of the  mz 3 
three phase grid voltages, ez= ea + eb + ec. (11)
Considering NP unbalanced condition, the zero sequence  f z1 
 VA21C 2  f z 2 
3
voltage, uzj can be derived as:
2
 f z 3 
Vdc V
u zj 
2
 mxj +
2
 sign(mxj )mxj where the coefficient matrix A2, B2, C2 are defined as:
x  a ,b , c x  a ,b , c
(6)
3 3
= Vdc mzj + Vf zj
2 2

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 L  L1 L1   R  R1 R1  inverter one yz1 can be set to zero without affecting the control
A2   2  ，B2   2 ，
R3  R1 
effect of ZSCC, since there exits redundancy for ZSCC
 L1 L3  L1   R1
(12) control. Then equation (16) is further simplified as:
 1 1 0
C2 =    mz1 
 1 0 1  d  iz 2  1  iz 2  3 1  
    A2 B2  i   Vdc A2 C 2  mz 2 
dt  iz 3   z3  2
In this section, the mathematical model of three-paralleled  mz 3  (17)
system is derived and simplified. It can be seen from the
3 y 
equivalent model that the ZSCCs of the three inverter are + Vdc A21  z 2 
coupled with each other. Follow the derivation procedure 2  yz 3 
above, mathematical model of multi-paralleled system can
also be derived. B. Control of NP Potential Balance
Redistribution the time of different type of small vectors are
III. PROPOSED CONTROL SCHEME OF ZSCC AND NP BALANCE
commonly used method for NP balance control. At the view
OF THREE-PARALLELED SYSTEM
of carrier based method, it is equivalent to proper zero-
A. Influence Analysis of Zero-sequence Injection on ZSCC sequence injection. In this paper, the zero sequence injected
for NP balance is:
Generally, the way to control ZSCC is by zero-sequence
injection. Assuming that the zero-sequence injected to three ynp  knp V (18)
inverters are yz1, yz2, yz3, that is:
where knp is the coefficient of NP balance control.
mx1 =mx1 +yz1 mx 2 =mx 2 +yz 2 mx 3 =mx3 +yz 3 (13) Ignoring sample error, the zero sequence injection for NP
Then the ZSCC model in equation (11) is transferred to: balance of each inverter is the same. It can be seen from
equation (16) that the ZSCC will not be affected if the three
 mz1  yz1  inverters inject the same component. This leads to a slightly
d  iz 2  1  iz 2  3 1  
    A2 B2  i   Vdc A2 C 2  mz 2  yz 2 
decoupling of ZSCC control and NP control.
dt iz 3   z3  2
 mz 3  yz 3  (14) C. Proposed Control Scheme of ZSCC and NP Balance
 f z1  f z1 ( yz1 )  The equations in (17) could be further simplified by the
 VA2 C 2  f z 2  f z 2 ( yz 2 ) 
3 1 following definition:
2
 f z 3  f z 3 ( yz 3 ) 
L1
izj  izj  iz1 (19)
Lj
where the variables ∆fz1(yz1), ∆fz2(yz2), ∆fz3(yz3) are defined as:
According to the definition, equation (17) is rewritten as:
f zj ( yzj )  f zj  f zj
1 (15)  iz1   mz1 
= (  sign(mxj )mxj   sign(mxj )mxj ) d iz 2  1   3 1  
3 x  a ,b , c    A3 B3 iz 2   Vdc A3 C3  mz 2 
x  a ,b , c
dt  iz3  2
By algebraic method, it can be proved that |Δfzj(yzj)| ≤ |yzj|. iz 3   mz 3  (20)
Also because that ΔV is much smaller than Vdc, therefore, 3 y 
 Vdc A31  z 2 
equation (14) can be simplified as: 2  yz 3 
 mz1  where the coefficient matrix A2, B2, C2 are defined as:
d  iz 2  1  iz 2  3 1  
    A2 B2  i   Vdc A2 C 2  mz 2 
dt  iz 3   z3  2
 mz 3  L 0  R  R2 0 
A3   2  B3   1
(16)
0 L3   R1 0  R3 
 f z1  (21)
 y  yz1 
 VA2 C 2  f z 2   Vdc A21  z 2
3 1 3  1 1 0 
 C3 =  
2
 f z 3 
2  yz 3  yz1   1 0 1 

The calculation of variable fz1, fz2, fz3 is a little bit complex.
Besides, the difference of bus voltage ΔV is much smaller than
the Vdc, therefore, these variables can also be neglected.
Observed from equation (16), the injected zero-sequence of
Equation (20) describes a new equivalent model form of
three-paralleled three-level inverter system, where i′zj is the
reorganized states of the original ZSCC iz1, izj.
It can be seen from Fig. 2 that the sum of iz1, iz2, iz3 is zero.
Therefore, the original ZSCC iz1, iz2, iz3 will be well

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suppressed when the reorganized states i′z2, i′z3 are controlled

to zero. That means the control of the original ZSCCs and
reorganized states are equivalent.
According to equation (20), the equation of jth inverter is
derived as:
dizj 3 3
Lj   R j izj  k j iz1  Vdc (mzj  mz1 )  Vdc yzj
dt 2 2
(22)
R j R1
k j  L1 (  )
L j L1

The Laplace transform of (22) can be obtained as:


3Vdc ( M zj  M z1  Yzj )  2k j I z1 (a)
I zj  (23)
2  ( sL j  R j )

where Iz1, I′zj, Mz1, Mzj, Yzj are the Laplace form of iz1, i′zj, mz1,
mzj, yzj.
The control scheme based on the proposed equivalent
model is described in Fig. 4. According to the definition, the
variable k2 and k3 are relatively small and the control loop has
effective damping characteristic to the disturbance according
to the control theory. Therefore, the impact of iz1 could be
neglected. Moreover, the feed forward strategy is introduced
to the controller to eliminate the ZSCC spikes.
According to the derivation procedure, for the M-paralleled
inverter system, the equation of ZSCC suppression is the same 
as equation (22). That means the proposed method will also be (b)
Fig. 4. Control scheme of ZSCC suppression.
effective for M-paralleled system.
(a) The ZSCC control schemes. (b) The overall control scheme.
It can be seen from Fig. 4(a) that the ZSCC control schemes
of jth inverter is only related to the first inverter and is
TABLE II
independent of the rest inverters. In theory, the jth inverter SIMULATION PARAMETERS
can be switched on or off without impacting the operation of DC Voltage Vdc 400V
the system. More inverters can be added conveniently which Grid Voltage Em 200V
makes the paralleled system more flexible. Inductor L1 5mH
Fig. 4 (b) shows the overall control scheme including the Inductor L2 3mH
suppression circulating current algorithm. A d- and q-axis Inductor L3 4mH
current controller containing the feed-forward decoupling Current Im1, Im2, Im3 17/15/13A
control strategy with PI controllers are adopted in each Sample Time Ts 200μs
inverter. The modified quantities yzj is calculated in the jth

3LT2I to refresh the distribution small vectors in the
suppression is not satisfied. The ZSCCs of the three inverters
symmetric SVM.
are well suppressed and the output currents are improved after
Moreover, this paper takes L output filter as the simplest
the proposed control scheme is applied shown in Fig. 5(c).
sample; actually, the proposed method is also valid for the use
Fig. 6 shows the simulation results of the smooth start and
of LCL filters.
break waveforms under the proposed PI+FF regulator.
Fig. 7(a) shows the performance of the system when the
IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
reference current of inverter 3 changes from 13 to 20A and the
To verify the proposed approach, SIMULINK based references current of inverter 1 and inverter 2 are fixed to 17A
simulation is performed. The parameters for the simulation are and 15A, the proposed method still has good circulation
shown in Table II and Em, Im1, Im2, Im3 refer to peak values. suppression capability. From Fig. 7(b), it can be seen that the
Fig. 5 shows the simulation results of three-paralleled inductance parameters change form L1=5mH, L2=3mH,
system with Im1=17A, Im2=15A, and Im3=13A. As shown in Fig. L3=4mH to L1=6mH, L2=4mH, L3=5mH cause more ZSCC
5(a), the output currents are distorted without ZSCC control. during the transient process. However, a relatively short
The output current quality is improved to some extent with the transient process can be achieved using the proposed PI+FF
conventional method shown in Fig. 5(b). However, the ZSCC control scheme.

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
(a) (a)


(b)
(b)
Fig. 7. Simulation results with Im1 =17, Im2 = 15A, Im3 = 13A. (a) Inverter
reference current changes. (b) Inductance parameters change.


(c)
Fig. 5. Simulation results with Im1 =17, Im2 = 15A, Im3 = 13A. (a) Without
ZSCC control. (b) With PI regulator only. (c)With PI regulator and FF.

Fig. 8. Simulation results of comparison between control strategies with LCL

filter when Im1 =15A, Im2 = 13A, Im3 = 17A.

algorithm is applied and there is large ZSCC. The current

waveforms are also distorted. At 50ms, PI controller is
adopted. It can be seen than the ZSCC is suppressed to some
extent and the waveforms of the phase currents become better.
However, the ZSCC spikes caused by symmetrical space
vector modulation cannot be eliminated. At 100ms, PI
controller together with FF strategy is applied and the ZSCC
Fig. 6. Start and break waveforms under the proposed PI+FF regulator.
spikes are eliminated.

Fig. 8 shows the simulation results of comparison between
control strategies with LCL filter when Im1 =15A, Im2 = 13A,
Im3 = 17A.The parameters of LCL is L=1.5mH (inductance on
inverter side), Lg=0.3mH (inductance on grid side), Cf=10uF
and damping resistor of LCL is 2Ω. At first, no ZSCC control
V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
To verify the proposed approach, experimental results are
performed in a prototype of two-paralleled and three-
paralleled 3LT2Is shown in Fig. 9.The experimental platform
control system is based on the dSPACE1005+CPLD

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Transactions on Industry Applications

TABLE III
EXPERIMENT PARAMETERS
DC Voltage Vdc 400V
Grid Voltage Em 200V
Inductor L1 5mH
Inductor L2 3mH
Inductor L3 4mH
Current Im1, Im2, Im3 10/12/13/14/15A
Sample Time Ts 200μs
Kp 0.5
Ki 1

(a)

(b)
Fig. 9. Photograph of the experimental prototype system.

architecture. dSPACE is the main controller, which is

responsible for signal acquisition, control algorithm execution
and PWM generation. CPLD is the slave controller, which
receives dSPACE control and PWM signal, and is responsible
for dead zone setting and overcurrent protection. The model
number of the IGBT is 10-FZ12NMA080SH01-M260F.The
parameters for the experiments are shown in Table III and Em,
Im1, Im2, Im3 refer to peak values.
Fig. 10 shows the experimental waveforms with equal
reference currents. The output phase currents are distorted
without ZSCC suppression. The performance of ZSCC
suppression with PI controller only is limited shown in Fig.
10(b). With the proposed method being employed, ZSCC is
well suppressed and the ZSCC spikes are eliminated.
Fig. 11 shows the waveforms with different reference
currents and Im1 =17, Im2 = 13A. This is a worse case and a
large ZSCC is generated. As shown in Fig. 11(a), the phase
currents of 3LT2Is are distorted seriously. The ZSCC can only
be partly suppressed with the PI controller scheme. It can be
seen that the ZSCC spikes cannot be eliminated either. The
current quality becomes superior after implementing the
proposed control scheme.
The comparison between control strategies is shown in Fig.
12 under the condition of Im1 =17, Im2 = 13A. At first, no
ZSCC control algorithm is applied and there is large ZSCC.
The current waveforms are also distorted. At 30ms, PI
controller is adopted. It can be seen than the ZSCC is
(c)
Fig. 10. Experimental results with Im1 = Im2 = 15A. (a) Without ZSCC
control. (b) With PI regulator only. (c)With PI regulator and FF.
suppressed to some extent and the waveforms of the phase
currents become better. However, the ZSCC spikes caused by
symmetrical space vector modulation cannot be eliminated. At
80ms, PI controller together with FF strategy is applied. The
ZSCC spikes are eliminated and the current quality becomes
superior.
To verify the effectiveness of the NP balance control
together with the ZSCC control, the upper and lower capacitor
voltage VP, VN as well as the line to line voltages is given in
Fig. 13.
Fig. 14 shows the experimental waveforms with equal
reference currents and unequal inductances. As shown in Fig.
14(a), the currents are distorted without ZSCC suppression.
The performance of ZSCC suppression with PI controller is


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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TIA.2019.2910790, IEEE
Transactions on Industry Applications

(a) Fig. 13. Experimental results of NP voltage and line-to-line voltages.

(b) (a)

(c) (b)
Fig. 11. Experimental results with Im1 =17, Im2 = 13A. (a) Without ZSCC
control. (b) With PI regulator only. (c)With PI regulator and FF.

(c)
Fig. 14. Experimental results with Im1 = Im2 = Im3 = 10A. (a) Without ZSCC
control. (b) With PI regulator only. (c)With PI regulator and FF.
Fig. 12. Experimental results of comparison between control strategies with
Im1 =17, Im2 = 13A. Fig. 15 shows the waveforms with different reference
currents and Im1 = 14A, Im2 = 12A, and Im3 = 10A. As shown in
limited shown in Fig. 14(b). The ZSCC is well suppressed Fig. 15(a), the output currents of 3LT2Is are distorted seriously
using the proposed method. without ZSCC controller. The ZSCC can only be partly

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TIA.2019.2910790, IEEE
Transactions on Industry Applications
(a)
(b)
(c)
Fig. 15. Experimental results with Im1 = 14A, Im2 = 12A, and Im3 = 10A. (a)
Without ZSCC control. (b) With PI regulator only. (c) With PI regulator and
FF.

suppressed with the PI controller scheme shown in Fig. 15(b).
It can be seen that the ZSCC spikes cannot be eliminated
either. The current quality becomes superior after
implementing the proposed control scheme shown in Fig.
15(c).
VI. CONCLUSION
This paper proposes a more flexible control scheme to
suppress zero-sequence circulating current in multi-paralleled
three-level T-type inverters based on a new equivalent model.
Feed-Forward strategy is adopted in the new control scheme
to eliminate the ZSCC spikes caused by symmetrical three-
level space vector modulation. The first inverter does not
control ZSCC due to redundancy while the rest inverters have
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the same ZSCC controller. Therefore, the number of paralleled
inverters could be increased or decreased optionally according
to the requirements without complicating the controller design.
Simulation results indicate that ZSCC could also be well
suppressed in a three-paralleled system. Experiments are
conducted on two-paralleled and three-paralleled system and
the effectiveness of the control scheme is validated.
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Alian Chen (M’14) was born in Shandong Province,
China, in 1976. She received the B.S. and M.S.
degrees from Shandong University, Jinan, China, in
1998 and 2000, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree
from Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, in 2005,
all in electrical engineering.,In 2005, she joined the
School of Control Science and Engineering,
Shandong University. In 2013, she was a Visiting
Scholar with the Center for Power Electronics
Systems, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA. Her
research interests include multilevel converters,
power electronics, and industrial applications.
Zicheng Zhang (S’16) was born in Dezhou, China,
in 1991. He received the B.S. degree in automation
and the M.S. degree in control engineering from the
School of Control Science and Engineering,
Shandong University, Jinan, China, in 2014 and
2017 respectively. He is currently working as an
electrical engineer in Shandong AoTai electric
Co.,Ltd.. His current research interests include
multilevel converters, grid-connected inverters, and
dc-dc converters.
Xiangyang Xing (M’18) was born in China, in 1985.
He received the B.S. and M.S. degree from Qufu
Normal University, China, in 2009 and 2012. He
received the Ph.D. degree in the School of Control
Science and Engineering, Shandong University,
Jinan, Shandong, China, in 2016. He is currently
working as postdoctoral in the Shandong university.
His current research interests include multilevel
converters, power conversion, renewable power
generation.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TIA.2019.2910790, IEEE
Transactions on Industry Applications

Ke Li was born in China, in 1979. He received the

B.S. degree from Shandong Jianzhu University, China,
in 2002. He received the Ph.D. degree in electrical
engineering, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong,
China, in 2007. In 2007, he joined the School of
Control Science and Engineering, Shandong
University. His current research interests include
electric drive system, new energy technology for
electric vehicles, frequency conversion speed
regulation and energy saving technology.

Chunshui Du (M’15) was born in Shandong, China,

in 1973. He received the B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D.
degrees from Shandong University, Jinan, China, in
1997, 2002, and 2011, respectively.,In 2003, he joined
the School of Control Science and Engineering,
Shandong University. In 2014, he was a Visiting
Scholar with the University of Tennessee, Knoxville,
TN, USA. He has been involved in research on
alternative energy generation, high-frequency soft-
switching power converters, and microgrid control
technology.

Chenghui Zhang (M’14-SM’18) was born in

Shandong, China, in 1963. He received the B.S. and
M.S. degrees in automation engineering from the
Shandong University of Technology, Jinan, China, in
1985 and 1988, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in
control theory and operational research from
Shandong University, Jinan, in 2001.,In 1988, he
joined Shandong University, where he is currently a
Full Professor with the School of Control Science
and Engineering, and the Director of the Research
Center of Power Electronics Energy-Saving Technology and Equipment,
Chinese Education Ministry. He was selected as a Changjiang Scholar of the
Education Ministry in 2009 and a Taishan Scholar of Shandong Province in
2009. His current research interests include optimal control of engineering,
power electronics and motor drives, and energy-saving techniques.

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