In view of the problems such as huge bulk，harmonic pollution，and complicated switching with the currently widely used ice-melting equipment based on the state var compensator（SVC），a new design based on the modular multilevel cascade converter is proposed.The double-star bridge-cells modular multilevel cascade converter（DSBC-MMC）discussed in this paper is a combination of H-bridge static synchronous compensator（STATCOM）and half bridge modular multilevel converter（MMC），which can be used as a reactive power compensator and high voltage DC source.Thus it is suitable for DC ice-melting application.A control method which takes into account both the DC ice-melting and reactive power compensation is proposed.The simulation performed has verified the effectiveness of the solution and control method proposed.