High Ef­fi­ciency Com­mer­cial PV In­vert­er

Traditionally, importance of efficiency is valued the highest for PV (Photovoltaic) inverters. The driving factors are the benefits on installation costs, logistics and real-estate (in case of commercial installations). Obviously, lots of recent research has been dedicated to the performance enhancement of PV inverters. However, the best European efficiency of commercially available inverters (above 100 kW) is 98.3 % and this figure is true only for a part of the actual PV voltage range. For most of the practical purposes, the efficiency specified goes down by about 1.5-2 %. Many of the topologies are still confined to research and not able to make their way to the market, due to practical considerations of manufacturers and customers (agency norms, EMI, reliability etc). Lots of research has been dedicated to develop novel topologies but, very little has been done towards practical innovative solutions.

This research aims at achieving an European efficiency above 98.5 % and at the same time keeping it independent of varying input PV voltages (operating point). Also, the solution must give the best compromise between initial system costs and efficiency. Another primary objective is to come out with a practical and sustainable solution, suitable to the industry. The work is concentrated on commercial PV inverters in the power range of 100-500 kW.

 

Economics of Photovoltaic System:

The pie chart gives an approximate distribution of costs of a commercial PV installation connected to a 400V grid. It can be seen that the inverter contributes to only 8% of the system costs.A 1% improvement in inverter efficiency implies 80$/kW lesser initial costs and additional benefits on logistics (land costs, etc.)

ηeuro = 0.03η5% + 0.06η10% + 0.13η20% + 0.1η30% + 0.48η50% + 0.2η100% 

Therefore, partial load efficiencies play an important role in selection of a topology.

Loss distribution:

Obtaining the loss distribution in various topologies is a must due to the following two reasons.It gives us an opportunity to identify the major loss producing areas, which can be targeted for improvements.Topologies with lower switching loss components will be suitable for higher switching frequencies. Higher switching frequency operation reduces cost. Lower switching loss component also imply an efficiency which is DC –link voltage independent. This characteristic is highly desirable due to the large range of PV voltages(due to their temperature dependent characteristic).

 

Cost:

The cost is undisputedly the most important parameter which influences the commercial success of any product. The idea here is, however, not directly to reduce costs, but to make the best compromise. Increase in costs must be weighed with respect to the payback period (due to better efficiency), decrease in system costs, Real estate costs and other logistics.Also, In some cases, the cost is reasonably reduced by the use of control strategies, specific to each topology.

 

Application specific requirements:

Some of the installations feed into a medium voltage (10kV) grid, while others feed into a low voltage (400V) grid. The solution, which suits one configuration, is not the best option for the other configuration. Therefore, there is a need to identify optimal solutions for both cases. Last but not the least, the solutions must confine to the various agency norms.

References:

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[2] Peter Zacharias
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[3] Hyosung Kim; Kyoung-Hwan Kim
Filter design for grid connected PV invertersProc. Sustainable Energy
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[4] R.W. De Doncker, J.P. Lyons
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Active Auxiliary Resonant Snubber-Assisted Soft-Switching PWM Inverter with Optimum Gate Pulse Patte& Sequences and Its PV-System
ApplicationAnnual IEEE Power Electronics Specialists Conference Aachen
[7] D. Kranzer et al.
Application of normally-off SiC-JFETs in photovoltaic inverters
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[8] Li, Y.P. et al.
IGBT device application aspects for 50-kW zero-current-transition inverters
IEEE Transactions on Industrial Applications, vol 40, pp1039-1048, July/August 2004
[9] K. Venkatachalam  et al.
Accurate Prediction of Ferrite Core Loss with Nonsinusoidal Waveforms Using Only Steinmetz Parameters
IEEE Workshop on Computers in Power Electronics,  pp 36-41, June 2002
[10] M. S. Lancarotte, C. Goldemberg, A. de Arruda Penteado
Estimation of FeSi Core Losses Under PWM or DC Bias Ripple Voltage Excitations
IEEE Transactions on Energy Conversion, vol. 20, No. 2, June 2005
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Dr.-Ing. Frank Schafmeister

Power Electronics and Electrical Drives

Interim Professor Power Electronics and Electrical Drives

Write email +49 5251 60-3881