6168 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 61, NO.
11, NOVEMBER 2014
Diode-Free T-Type Three-Level
Neutral-Point-Clamped Inverter for Low-Voltage
Renewable Energy System
Yong Wang, Member, IEEE, W. W. Shi, N. Xie, and C. M. Wang
AbstractIn this paper, the conventional I- and T-type three-
level neutral-point-clamped (3L-NPC) inverter for low-voltage
renewable energy systems is first investigated. Literature research
shows that the T-type inverter improves I-types insulated-gate
bipolar transistor (IGBT) + IGBT current paths. However, the
IGBT + diode paths are the same. The calculation in this paper
further reveals that the IGBT + diode current paths dominate the
conduction losses and even the whole semiconductor losses. Based
on the aforementioned recognitions, a novel T-type inverter is
presented as an alternative to be applied in the low-voltage renew-
able energy systems. In the proposed 3L-NPC, four CoolMosfets
replace the IGBT + diode middle bidirectional switch. In the
proposed topology, there is no diode involved in the current path
supposing the unity power factor. In this way, the conduction loss is
expected to be reduced compared with that from the conventional
T-type 3L-NPC, particularly in the low and medium power ranges.
Index TermsI- and T-types, loss, reduce, three levels.
I. I NTRODUCTION
O VER THE past two or three decades, multilevel inverters,
such as the neutral-point-clamped (NPC) inverter [1],
the flying capacitor inverter [2], and the cascaded multilevel
converter [3], have been increasingly studied and widely ap-
plied. Multilevel inverters are basically composed by an array of
power components and dc voltage supplies which can produce
stepped voltage waveforms [4], [5]. Among them, the NPC
inverter is the most widely known and adopted multilevel
topology for its low current distortion and high efficiency [6],
[7]. In the low-voltage renewable energy systems, the three-
level NPC (3L-NPC) inverter has been the center of numerous
research studies and applications [8], [9].
In this paper, the state of the art of 3L-NPC inverters applied
in the low-voltage renewable energy systems is investigated
thoroughly. Moreover, the 3L-NPC inverters are divided into
I- and T-types according to their leg shapes. The competi-
Manuscript received August 29, 2013; revised December 2, 2013 and
January 31, 2014; accepted February 7, 2014. Date of publication March 12,
2014; date of current version June 6, 2014. This work was supported in part by
the National Natural Science Foundation of China through Project 51177100
and in part by the State Energy Smart Grid R&D Center (Shanghai).
The authors are with the Key Laboratory of Control of Power Trans-
mission and Conversion, Ministry of Education, Department of Electri-
cal Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
(e-mail: wangyong75@sjtu.edu.cn; sww@sjtu.edu.cn; xiening@sjtu.edu.cn;
wangchengmin@sjtu.edu.cn).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIE.2014.2311407
0278-0046 2014 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
tiveness of those two types for low-voltage renewable energy
systems is then discussed.
In the following sections, the leg switch statuses of 1100 and
0011 are defined as nonzero vectors with positive and negative
output voltages, where 0 and 1 denote the switch ON and OFF
states, respectively, in the sequence of S1, S2, S1c, and S2c.
The literature shows that the T-type 3L-NPC improves the
conduction loss of the nonzero-vector current path of I-type
3L-NPC. However, the zero-vector current paths conduction
losses are the same [10], [11]. In both I- and T-types zero
vectors, there are one diode and one insulated-gate bipolar
transistor (IGBT) involved in the current path. Therefore,
there is at least 2-V total conduction voltage due to IGBT +
diode structure according to the IGBT and diode datasheets.
Moreover, this conduction voltage causes high power losses,
particularly in low and medium power ranges of a renewable
energy system.
Moreover, this paper theoretically proves that the zero vec-
tors duty time or its conduction loss is almost equal to the sum
of the other positive and negative nonzero vectors. Therefore,
the improvement on the zero vectors conduction loss is critical
for improving the inverter efficiency [11].
Based on the aforementioned recognitions, a novel diode-
free T-type 3L-NPC inverter for low-voltage renewable energy
systems is proposed in this paper, aiming to improve the zero-
vector conduction loss and, hence, to reduce the total power
loss. In this new topology, a CoolMosfet paralleled path is
formed as the zero-vector current path. There is no diode
involved in the zero-vector current paths even with the nonunity
power factor. Instead, two reverse conducted CoolMosfets are
used as diodes. Therefore, the zero vectors conduction voltage
is reduced a lot and ranged from a few hundred millivolts up to
about 2 V with the rated power. Since there is no IGBT body
diode conducted as well supposing the unity power factor, the
new topology can be defined as diode-free T-type 3L-NPC.
This rest of this paper is organized as follows. In Section II,
various kinds of 3L-NPC inverters are analyzed and classified
into I- and T-types. The common high zero-vector conduction
losses of both are summarized. Based on the discussion in
Section II, a novel T-type 3L-NPC topology, together with its
pulsewidth-modulation (PWM) strategy, is proposed and de-
scribed in Section III. In Section IV, the power loss distribution
is evaluated among the conventional T-type 3L-NPC and the
proposed T-type 3L-NPC. Later in Section V, the system design
and experimental results are discussed for the case where the
WANG et al.: T-TYPE THREE-LEVEL NPC INVERTER FOR LOW-VOLTAGE RENEWABLE ENERGY SYSTEM
Fig. 1. Conventional I-type 3L-NPC.
Fig. 2. Current paths of conventional I-type 3L-NPC leg. (a) 1100. (b) 0110.
(c) 0011.
new topology is applied to a solar inverter system. Finally,
Section VI concludes this paper.
II. I NVESTIGATION OF 3L-NPC I NVERTER FOR
R ENEWABLE E NERGY S YSTEM
Currently, I-type 3L-NPC has been studied and applied dom-
inantly in low-voltage renewable energy systems [12], [13].
The authors in [14] proposed a three-level active clamped
NPC inverter used for renewable energy systems to improve
the efficiency. The 3L-NPC wind converters operation strategy
under unbalanced grid condition is discussed in [15]. The
authors in [16] proposed a split inductor I-type 3L-NPC in the
solar system for low leakage current and dead-time elimination.
A novel highly efficient stacked 3L-NPC (3L-SNPC) inverter is
proposed in [17] to provide the paralleled current paths. Based
on the work in [17], the authors in [18] proposed an active
clamped 3L-SNPC to further distribute power losses evenly.
The aforementioned literature covers the different perspec-
tives of I-type 3L-NPC. However, all hardware topologies are
based on or derived from the fundamental I-type 3L-NPC leg,
as shown in Fig. 1.
Therefore, they have common or similar features, as de-
scribed in the following.
Fig. 2 shows the current paths with the leg switch statuses of
1100, 0110, and 0011. As aforementioned, 1100 and 0011 are
defined as nonzero vectors with the output voltage being equal
to Vdc /2, and 0110 is defined as a zero vector with output
equal to zero.
It is shown in Fig. 2 that, in both zero vector and nonzero
vector, the current paths include two power devices. These long
current paths imply the high conduction loss. Second, higher
6169
Fig. 3. Long commutation path during reactive power generation.
Fig. 4. One leg of the T-type 3L-NPC.
stray inductance, due to the long current paths, results in higher
power loss and turns off overvoltages.
Moreover, Fig. 3 shows the reactive power generation of the
conventional I-type 3L-NPC. In the blue and red regions of
Fig. 3, when the switching sequence changes from 1100 to
0110, or from 0011 to 0110, the current commutates through
a long commutation path from D1, D2 to S1c, Dnpc2 or
from D1c, D2c to S2, Dnpc1. Therefore, four devices are
involved in the current commutation. The longer commutation
paths consisting of four devices cause higher power transition
loss as well as the higher conduction loss. Having the same
arguments with the aforementioned long current path, the long
commutation path in Fig. 3 increases the stray inductance. More
importantly, there are three diodes involved when a zero vector
is commutating with a nonzero vector. It causes higher diode
reverse recovery losses and worse electromagnetic interference
issues.
It is worthy of noting that the renewable energy system
is usually operating in a much lower power range than the
rated power. Moreover, the foregoing discussed drawbacks of
I-type 3L-NPC seem more prominent because of the IGBT and
diode relatively larger state voltage/current ratio at the low and
medium powers.
Based on the foregoing recognitions, the T-type 3L-NPC,
as shown in Fig. 4, is being studied increasingly to improve
the system efficiency. The authors in [10] evaluated the power
loss and control scheme of T-type 3L-NPC applied in the low-
voltage renewable energy system. The authors in [11] applied
T-type 3L-NPC in a solar system to avoid the high conduc-
tion loss.
As shown in Fig. 5, in the T-type 3L-NPC, the long current
paths of nonzero vectors [as shown in Fig. 2(a) and (c)] are
shortened with only one device conducting. Therefore, the con-
duction loss of the T-type 3L-NPC in states shown in Fig. 5(a)
and (c) is smaller than that of the I-type.
6170
Fig. 5. Topological states of T-type 3L-NPC. (a) 1100. (b) 0110. (c) 0011.
Fig. 6. Topological states of T-type 3L-NPC within the reactive power region.
Fig. 7. kth triangular half-wave.
Moreover, the reactive power current commutation paths, as
shown in Fig. 6, reveal that one diode is less involved in the
current commutation compared to I-type 3L-NPC.
However, the same as in I-type 3L-NPC, the zero-vector 0110
in Fig. 5(b) has IGBT + diode two power devices conducting
in the current paths with up to 4 V of the ON-state voltage.
The high ON-state voltage can cause the same high conduction
loss as the I-type 3L-NPC shown in Fig. 2(b), particularly in
low and medium power ranges. More importantly, it should be
emphasized that, in Figs. 2 and 5, the zero vector in (b) occurs
about as much as the sum of the nonzero vectors in (a) and
(c), as aforementioned. Therefore, the zero vector dominates
the conduction loss more than the nonzero vector. From this
point of view, the improvement of T-type 3L-NPC over I-type
3L-NPC is much limited. The verification is given as follows.
As shown in Fig. 7, assume that the number of isosceles
triangles in the first 1/4 of the sine modulation wave, namely,
/2, is N . Then, the number of triangular half-waves is 2N .
In the kth triangular half-wave, we have
 
k The proposed novel diode-free T-type 3L-NPC inverter for
AB = m sin (1)
2N 2
where m is the modulation ratio.
 k 
AB m sin 2N 2
BD = CE = 2 (rad)
AC 1 2N
where CE = (/2)/2N (rad).
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 61, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2014
Fig. 8. Proposed novel T-type 3L-NPC.
Therefore, the sum of the high level in 1/4 cycle is

2N  
k
x= m sin (rad). (3)
2N 2 4N
k=1
Assuming that t = k/2N , then
1 
x= m sin t 2N dt = m (rad). (4)
4N 2
0
If m = 0.86, in the first 1/4 of a sine wave, namely, /2
1.57 rad, the sum of the high level is 0.86 rad. Therefore,
the zero vectors duty time reaches 45%, which is only 10%
less than the total time of the nonzero vectors. The power loss
calculation shows that the zero-vector conduction loss could be
larger if the power factor is less than unity, which means that, in
a sinusoidal cycle, the proportion of state (b) is nearly the same
as the sum of state (a) and state (c) in Figs. 2 and 5.
To summarize, in both I- and T-type 3L-NPCs, the zero
vectors conduction loss dominates the whole conduction losses
and even the whole semiconductor power losses. However, the
conventional T-type 3L-NPC only improves the I-type nonzero-
vector conduction losses, and the current path of T-type zero
vector is the same as that of I-type. Therefore, the T-type
improvement over I-type is much limited due to the unimproved
zero-vector conduction loss.
In this paper, based on the aforementioned recognitions of
the conventional 3L-NPC, a novel diode-free T-type 3L-NPC
inverter is proposed, aiming to reduce the zero-vector conduc-
tion loss, particularly in the low and medium power ranges.
III. P ROPOSED D IODE -F REE T-T YPE 3L-NPC
I NVERTER AND I TS PWM S TRATEGY
low-voltage renewable energy systems is shown in Fig. 8.
In this new topology, two 600-V CoolMosfets in the reverse
serial connection, hence S1c-1&S2c-1 and S2c-2&S1c-2, re-
place the IGBT + diode bidirectional middle switch in the
(2) conventional T-type 3L-NPC. Thus, in this topology, four Cool-
Mosfets form a parallel current path to reduce the equivalent
ON -state resistance. More importantly, the zero-vector current
WANG et al.: T-TYPE THREE-LEVEL NPC INVERTER FOR LOW-VOLTAGE RENEWABLE ENERGY SYSTEM
Fig. 9. PWM strategy.
Fig. 10. Topological states with unity power factor. (a) Vo = 0. (b) Vo =
Vdc /2. (c) Vo = 0. (d) Vo = Vdc /2.
Fig. 11. Current commutation within the reactive power region.
flows through two CoolMosfets in the reverse connection;
hence, no body diode is involved in the current path even with
6171
Fig. 12. Conduction voltage comparison (CoolMosfet = SPW47N60C3,
Power Mosfet + diode = FCH104N60F + DSEP60 06A,
IGBT + diode = 2 FGH40N60UFD).
The conduction features of the parallel CoolMosfets struc-
ture, the power Mosfet + diode, and the conventional IGBT +
diode switches in T-type 3L-NPC are tested and plotted in
Fig. 12 for comparison. In Fig. 12, the IGBT + diode structures
conduction voltage ranges from 2 to 4 V. However, the new par-
allel structure can soundly reduce the zero vectors conduction
voltage to less than 2 V, particularly in the low current range.
The power Mosfet + diode structure can reduce the ON-state
voltage within low and medium power ranges compared with
IGBT + diode. However, it causes larger conduction losses in
the high power range.
Moreover, in Fig. 10, with the unity power factor, there is
no body diode involved when a zero vector is commutating
with a nonzero vector. Even in Fig. 11, with the nonunity
power factor, there is only one diode involved in the current
commutation, while there are three and two diodes involved in
the conventional I- and T-type 3L-NPCs, respectively.
IV. P OWER L OSS E VALUATION
In order to quantitatively verify the new topology, the semi-
conductor losses of the conventional T-type and the novel
T-type 3L-NPC under different output power values are
calculated.
The conduction losses of S1, S2, S1c-1, S1c-2, S2c-1, and
S2c-2 are obtained by
PS1,S2cond
the nonunity power factor. 


The PWM strategy for the new topology is shown 1 Pout 2 sin(t)
in Fig. 9. = vFW m sin(t)dt
T Ug
With the new PWM strategy, the corresponding topological 0
 

states are shown in Fig. 10 with the unity power factor. The cur- Pout 2 sin(t)
rent commutation within the reactive power generation region + vce m sin(t)dt
Ug
is shown in Fig. 11.
In Figs. 10 and 11, with the nonzero vectors, the con- (5)
duction loss is the same as that of the conventional T-type PS1c1,S1c2,S2c1,S2c2cond
T 
2
3L-NPC. However, in the zero vector, the current is flowing 
through a parallel structure consisting of four Coolmosfets, 1 1 Pout 2 sin(t)
= ron
two conducting reversely and two conducting forward. In this T 2 Ug
way, the equivalent ON-state resistance is half reduced. More
0

importantly, there is no body diode involved in the zero-vector (1 m sin(t)) dt (6)
current path.
6172 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 61, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2014

Fig. 13. Conduction loss analysis (CoolMosfet = SPW47N60C3, IGBT + diode = 2 FGH40N60UFD, upper and lower IGBTs =
IKW40N120H3). (a) PF = 1, m = 0.9. (b) PF = 1, m = 0.8. (c) PF = 1, m = 0.9. (d) PF = 0.9, m = 0.9.

where , vFW , Ug , Pout , T , ron , and vce are the phase angle,
IGBT body diode forward voltage, grid voltage, output power,
grid period, CoolMosfet ON-state resistance, and IGBT ON-
state voltage, respectively.
As (6) shows, the CoolMosfet conduction loss is the same at
different power factors or .
The switching loss is calculated using the following iterative
algorithm:

 s0

 for k 0, ffs
Pswi = 50   (7)

 s s + E Pout 2sin
U
sin(kTs )
g Fig. 14. Loss reduction with PF = 1 and m = 0.9.

where fs , f , and Ts are the switching frequency, grid frequency,

and grid period, respectively, while E is the function between
the turn-on/turnoff losses per pulse and the current provided in
the datasheet.
The power loss calculation results are shown in Fig. 13. It
shows that the zero vectors conduction loss is almost equal
to the nonzero vectors conduction loss in the conventional
T-type 3L-NPC. However, the novel T-type 3L-NPC can
soundly reduce the zero-vector conduction loss.
Fig. 13(a) and (b) shows that the total conduction loss
increases when m is reduced. Moreover, the zero-vector con-
duction loss proportion increases with the reduced m. Fig. 13(c) Fig. 15. New T-type 3L-NPC system block diagram.
and (d) shows that the reduced power factor changes the upper
and lower IGBT conduction losses due to the body diode.
V. S YSTEM D ESIGN AND E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS
However, the parallel CoolMosfet current path conduction loss
does not change with the different power factors. A 5-kW solar inverter is designed to verify the new T-type
In Fig. 14, it is shown that the zero-vector conduction loss is 3L-NPC inverter. The 3L-NPC inverters block diagram is
reduced up to 90% by the parallel CoolMosfet current path. shown in Fig. 15. The current controller and the PWM strategy
If the switching loss is also counted into the total semicon- as shown in Fig. 9 are implemented by a low-cost DSP.
ductor loss, it is shown in Fig. 14 that the total semiconductor The main parameters in Fig. 15 and the power devices are
loss is reduced up to 30% by the improved zero vector. Partic- shown in Table I.
ularly in the low and medium power ranges with the relatively The experimental results are shown from Figs. 1620 with
low efficiency, the efficiency improvement is salient. the unity power factor.
WANG et al.: T-TYPE THREE-LEVEL NPC INVERTER FOR LOW-VOLTAGE RENEWABLE ENERGY SYSTEM 6173

TABLE I
N OVEL T-T YPE 3L-NPC P OWER D EVICES AND PARAMETERS

Fig. 18. Gs1, Gs1c-1, and Gs1c-2 drive signals; grid-side waveforms.

Fig. 19. Gs1, Gs1c-1, and Gs1c-2 drive signals; grid-side waveforms.

Fig. 16. Drive signals of all six switches.

Fig. 20. Efficiency comparison between the conventional and the novel T-type
two-stage solar inverter.
Fig. 17. Inverter-side output voltage.
TABLE II
Fig. 16 shows the drive signals of all six switches. It shows P OWER D EVICE C OST E VALUATION
that, in the zero vector, all four Coolmosfets are on to form
a bidirectional middle switch. It should be mentioned that,
in channels 2 and 3, the drive signals of Gs2c-2 and Gs1c-2
are the same as those of Gs2c-1 and Gs1c-1, and then de-
noted by Gs2c-1 and Gs1c-1 due to the channel and probe
limitation.
Fig. 17 shows the inverter-side output voltage Ui .
Figs. 18 and 19 show the drive signals of Gs1, Gs1c-1, and
Gs1c-2 and the grid-side voltage and current at 2.5 and 5 kW,
respectively.
Fig. 20 shows the efficiency plot in all power range and
VI. C ONCLUSION
the comparison with the conventional T-type 3L-NPC solar
inverter. It shows that the efficiency, particularly in the low In this paper, a novel diode-free zero-vector loss-reduced
power range, is soundly improved. T-type 3L-NPC topology has been proposed. It is theoretically
6174 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 61, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2014
proven that the zero-vector conduction loss is reduced up to
90% and the total semiconductor loss is reduced by up to 30%
by the parallel bidirectional CoolMosfet current path.
On the other side, the cost of the proposed topology with four
CoolMosfets is increased by 12$ compared to the conventional
T, as shown in Table II. The total cost of a 5-kW solar inverter is
estimated at 500$. Therefore, 0.24 cents per watt or about 2.4%
cost is increased, which is acceptable considering the yielding
ability improvement.
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Yong Wang (M12) received the Ph.D. degree
in power electronics from Zhejiang University,
Hangzhou, China, in 2005.
After receiving the Ph.D. degree, from 2005
to 2008, he was a Senior Researcher with the
Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, Yongin,
Korea. From 2008 to 2010, he was a Hardware Engi-
neer with Danfoss, Nordborg, Denmark. In 2010, he
joined the Department of Electrical Engineering,
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China,
where he is currently an Associate Professor. His
research interests include the power electronics applications in renewable
energy, particularly the grid-tied inverter.
W. W. Shi received the Ph.D. degree in electric
machines and electric apparatus from Southeast Uni-
versity, Nanjing, China, in 2002.
After receiving the Ph.D. degree, from 2002 to
2004, he was an Assistant Professor with Huaihai
Institute of Technology, Lianyungang, China. From
2004 to 2007, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher with
Southeast University. Since 2007, he has been an
Assistant Professor with the Department of Electrical
Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shang-
hai, China. His research interests include power elec-
tronics and grid integration of renewable energy.
N. Xie received the M.Sc. degree in electrical engi-
neering from Wuhan University, Wuhan, China, in
1998. She received a scholarship from the European
Union (EU)China joint doctoral program sponsored
by EU in 2008 and received the Ph.D. degree in
electrical engineering from the Politecnico di Torino,
Turin, Italy, in 2011.
In 2011, she became a Postdoctoral Researcher
at the Politecnico di Torino for one year. In 1998,
she joined the Department of Electrical Engineering,
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China,
where she is currently an Associate Professor. Her research interests include
power system analysis and advanced control, smart grids, and electricity
market.
C. M. Wang was born in 1970. He received the Ph.D.
degree from Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin,
China, in 2002.
He is currently a Full Professor with Shanghai Jiao
Tong University, Shanghai, China. He has published
more than 100 journal papers and books, of which
there are more than 40 papers indexed by SCI or
EI. His research interests include power system opti-
mization and planning.