Comprehensive evaluation on efficiency and thermal loading of associated Si and SiC based PV inverter applications

IEEE Trans. on Ind. Applicat.

et al. 2014

This paper introduces a real field mission profile oriented design tool for the new generation of grid-connected photovoltaic (PV)-inverter applications based on silicon carbide devices. The proposed design tool consists of a grid-connected PV-inverter model, an electrothermal model, a converter safe operating area (SOA) model, a mission profile model, and an evaluation block. The PV-system model involves a three-level bipolar switch neutral point clamped (3L-BS NPC) inverter connected to the three-phase grid through an LCL filter. Moreover, the SOA model calculates the required converter heatsink thermal impedance Z th_H in order to perform in a safe mode for the whole operating range. Furthermore, the proposed design tool considers the mission profile (the measured solar irradiance and ambient temperature) from the real field where the converter will operate. Thus, a realistic loading of the converter devices is achieved. To consider one-year real field measurements of the mission profile, an accurate long-term simulation model is developed. The model predicts the junction and case temperature of the converter devices, for three different case scenarios. In the first case, a one-year mission profile is used into the model with a sampling rate of 5 min. For the second and third case, a more detailed analysis is performed for a one-week mission profile (in the winter-summer time) with a sampling rate of 25 s. The simulation results shows the thermal loading distribution among the converter devices (MOSFET, IGBT+FD) in terms of junction (average, peak, ΔT) and case (average) temperature for all three simulation cases. Finally, the evaluation block is used to analyze the results in order to perform a thermal-loading-based classification of the converter devices.Index Terms-Design tool, mission profile, photovoltaic (PV)-inverters, silicon carbide (SiC)-devices, thermal loading.

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Section: B Grid-connected Pv-inverter Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Real Field Mission Profile Oriented Design of a SiC-Based PV-Inverter Application

IEEE Trans. on Ind. Applicat.

et al. 2014

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“…3 introduces the main control blocks, which are used to achieve the desired converter functionalities. A more detailed description of the grid connected PV-inverter control design has been presented in [6]. The PV-inverter model receives as input the reference current and voltage from the MPPT.…”

Section: Pv-inverter Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

A design tool to study the impact of mission-profile on the reliability of SiC-based PV-inverter devices

Microelectronics Reliability

et al. 2014

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“…By considering the input, the model estimates the realistic device (MOSFET and Diode) loading current (I M or I D ) and the voltage variations (off-state voltage V DC ). A more detailed description of the grid connected PVinverter control design has been presented in [7]. TABLE I. PV-SYSTEM DESIGN RATINGS Furthermore, the estimated parameters and the switching frequency will be used into the power loss P Loss model where the instantaneous conduction and switching losses of the device are calculated.…”

Section: Pv-inverter Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of gate-driver parameters variation and device degradation in the PV-inverter lifetime

2014 IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE)

et al. 2014

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