Abstract:As promising and suitable candidates for high-power applications, multilevel inverters have become one of the most promising solutions in various applications. However, power switching devices are highly subjected to thermal overheating, which leads to shortened lifetime and reduced reliability. Thermal overheating may result from the degradation of power switching devices due to continuous overloading and power cycling. In addition, degradation and faults in the cooling system of power switching devices may c… Show more
“…This voltage drop might occur as there is unbalance in the DC link capacitors voltage of the NPC inverter due to overheating of one or more of the IGBT. This event is matched with the fault signature which was investigated in 32 and classified as Temperature Signature Analysis (TSA). Figure 10 DC link voltage vs IGBT junction temperature.…”
The inverter is considered the core of the PV power plant. The inverter’s failure leads to generation loss and decreases plant availability. So, it is required to investigate a clear Root Cause Analysis (RCA) to deduce the failure causes and implement the required corrective action in addition to the preventive action to avoid more inverter failure, hereby maintaining the plant available to a certain value. This paper discusses real-time mode operation data analysis of the PV grid-connected inverter due to real central inverter incidents in Benban solar park located in Egypt.The central inverter plays an important role in the Mega-Scale PV power plant. The main function of this inverter is to convert the DC power produced by the PV modules to AC power to be injected into the utility grid by considering specific characteristics based on the grid code. The availability of any PV power plant directly depends on the healthy inverter’s operation. The more increases for the installed inverters, the less availability loss in the case of inverter partial or catastrophic failures. So, it is required to focus on the failure causes of the central inverter by implementing a technical analysis using the available operational data. The monitored data of the central inverter in the PV power plant is classified into two types. The first type is the continuous time data stored in the memory. It represents the waveforms of inverter outputs like voltage, current, frequency, …. etc. Unfortunately, in case of a catastrophic failure, the central inverter is completely charred, and the continuous time data is lost due to storage memory damage. The second type is the operation data that is recorded by the SCADA system (per one-minute interval). Hereby, the operation data is the sole data in the case of the completely charred inverter. The representation of the operational data in curves indicates symptoms that can be used for the RCA processes. The investigation outcomes include three results. The first result is detecting the signature of the IGBT thermal stress on the voltage balance of the DC link capacitor. The second result is verifying a scenario for the cause of the IGBT failure by implementing a technical mathematical model based on the detected symptoms that denote the fault signature which is considered the thread-tip for detecting the failure cause. The third result is the simulating scenario for the interpretation of a DC link capacitors explosion due to the short circuit fault that occurred due to IGBT failure. The investigation in this paper is performed based on operation data analysis of the PV grid-connected inverter (central type) due to a real incident. The analysis methodology is based on mathematical calculation for the IGBT junction temperature using the measured heatsink temperature. The study concludes that after the IGBT failure occurred, it was a short circuit for a while and closed the terminals of the DC link capacitors. So, the DC link capacitors exploded and produced heavy sparks that led to enough fire to burn the inverter container completely.
“…This voltage drop might occur as there is unbalance in the DC link capacitors voltage of the NPC inverter due to overheating of one or more of the IGBT. This event is matched with the fault signature which was investigated in 32 and classified as Temperature Signature Analysis (TSA). Figure 10 DC link voltage vs IGBT junction temperature.…”
The inverter is considered the core of the PV power plant. The inverter’s failure leads to generation loss and decreases plant availability. So, it is required to investigate a clear Root Cause Analysis (RCA) to deduce the failure causes and implement the required corrective action in addition to the preventive action to avoid more inverter failure, hereby maintaining the plant available to a certain value. This paper discusses real-time mode operation data analysis of the PV grid-connected inverter due to real central inverter incidents in Benban solar park located in Egypt.The central inverter plays an important role in the Mega-Scale PV power plant. The main function of this inverter is to convert the DC power produced by the PV modules to AC power to be injected into the utility grid by considering specific characteristics based on the grid code. The availability of any PV power plant directly depends on the healthy inverter’s operation. The more increases for the installed inverters, the less availability loss in the case of inverter partial or catastrophic failures. So, it is required to focus on the failure causes of the central inverter by implementing a technical analysis using the available operational data. The monitored data of the central inverter in the PV power plant is classified into two types. The first type is the continuous time data stored in the memory. It represents the waveforms of inverter outputs like voltage, current, frequency, …. etc. Unfortunately, in case of a catastrophic failure, the central inverter is completely charred, and the continuous time data is lost due to storage memory damage. The second type is the operation data that is recorded by the SCADA system (per one-minute interval). Hereby, the operation data is the sole data in the case of the completely charred inverter. The representation of the operational data in curves indicates symptoms that can be used for the RCA processes. The investigation outcomes include three results. The first result is detecting the signature of the IGBT thermal stress on the voltage balance of the DC link capacitor. The second result is verifying a scenario for the cause of the IGBT failure by implementing a technical mathematical model based on the detected symptoms that denote the fault signature which is considered the thread-tip for detecting the failure cause. The third result is the simulating scenario for the interpretation of a DC link capacitors explosion due to the short circuit fault that occurred due to IGBT failure. The investigation in this paper is performed based on operation data analysis of the PV grid-connected inverter (central type) due to a real incident. The analysis methodology is based on mathematical calculation for the IGBT junction temperature using the measured heatsink temperature. The study concludes that after the IGBT failure occurred, it was a short circuit for a while and closed the terminals of the DC link capacitors. So, the DC link capacitors exploded and produced heavy sparks that led to enough fire to burn the inverter container completely.
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