Patent ID: 8344643

Claim:
A system for driving loads, the system comprising: a first power generator configured to generate a plurality of AC voltages including at least a first AC voltage and a second AC voltage; and a plurality of current balancing devices, each of the plurality of current balancing devices being configured to receive two currents and balance the two currents; wherein: each of a plurality of loads is configured to be directly or indirectly coupled between two of the plurality of AC voltages; the plurality of loads corresponds to one or more groups including groups 1 through m, m≧2; each group i of the plurality of groups, 1≦i≦m, includes: a plurality of n i loads including loads L(1,i) through L(n i ,i), each of the plurality of n i loads being associated with a load current I(1,i) through I(n i ,i) respectively, n i ≧3; and current balancing devices CBD(1,i) through CBD(n i −1,i) selected from the plurality of current balancing devices, each current balancing device CBD(j,i) of CBD(1,i) through CBD(n i −1,i) is configured to balance load currents I(j,i) and I(j+1,i), respectively, 1≦j≦n i −1; and the plurality of current balancing devices further includes, for each group i, an additional current balancing device for balancing load currents I(1,i) and I(n i ,i).