A novel converter for voltage balance in series-connected capacitors and batteries

This paper presents a novel concept of a circuit for voltage balance of three series-connected capacitors or batteries, as well as the research results. The problem is related to the control of voltage sharing on series capacitors, supercapacitors or battery banks in energy storage systems or direct current (DC)-link of four-level neutral-point-clamped inverters. The proposed circuit is a switched-capacitor (SC) resonant converter composed of a single capacitor and seven transistor switches. Control of the converter makes it possible to transfer energy between any capacitors, by switching selected transistors. This paper presents the basic concept of the converter, an analysis of control strategies and the simulation results for various cases of voltage balancing.