Power conversion apparatus having a negative terminal of a power supply connected to one of connection nodes of a negative side bus with U-phase, V-phase and W-phase lower-arm switching elements except the end-side ones

A power conversion apparatus comprising:

• series connections each including a low-voltage side switching element having first and second ends and a high-voltage side switching element connected to the first end of the low-voltage side switching element;
• a negative side bus to which the second ends of the low-voltage side switching elements are connected;
• drive circuits provided respectively for the low-voltage side switching elements for respectively driving the low-voltage side switching elements;
• and
• a power supply connected to the drive circuits;
• wherein
• a ground voltage of each of the drive circuits is a voltage of the second end of a corresponding one of the low-voltage side switching elements,
• the negative side bus has an elongated shape,
• the low-voltage side switching elements are arranged along a direction in which the negative side bus extends to be connected to the negative side bus,
• a negative terminal of the power supply is connected to one of connection nodes of the negative side bus with the low-voltage side switching elements except the connection node closest to an extreme end of the negative side bus, and
• a low pass filter is interposed between the power supply and each of the drive circuits except the drive circuit corresponding to the low-voltage side switching element connected with the negative terminal of the power supply.