Abstract

Most electric traction systems on marine vessels obtain power from a diesel generator set, which powers the vessel network and the propulsion power converters. An alternative to eliminate the use of hydrocarbons are fuel cells, since lithium batteries do not provide sufficient autonomy. Modular Multilevel Matrix Converter (M3C) is an attractive motor drive for electric marine propulsion, and it could use fuel cells and batteries embedded in its submodules to provide energy to both the propulsion motors and the vessel grid. This paper proposes an circulating current reference generator based on a power controller for a M3C with hybrid energy storage system (M3C-HES), enabling the grid feeding to the internal grid and the propulsion system of vessels. For this purpose a current controller to govern the converter is presented. The results shows that the controller is capable to achieve unbalanced power feeding the input and output port simultaneously. Simulations are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposal.