Reliability Improvement for a High-Power IGBT in Wind Energy Applications

• Published in: IEEE transactions on industrial electronics (1982) Vol. 65; no. 9; pp. 7129 - 7137
• Main Author: Alhmoud, Lina
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.09.2018; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Active control; Capacity factor; Computer simulation; Converters; Doubly fed induction generator (DFIG); Energy conversion; Induction generators; Insulated gate bipolar transistors; Junctions; Low pass filters; low-pass filter (LPF); Mathematical model; Mathematical models; Pitch (inclination); pitch control; Power consumption; Reliability; Rotors; Semiconductor devices; Thermal analysis; Variation; Wind effects; Wind power; Wind turbines
• ISSN: 0278-0046; 1557-9948
• DOI: 10.1109/TIE.2018.2795568

The power command in wind energy conversion systems is subject to wind power fluctuations, which may cause significant thermal cyclings of high-power insulated-gate bipolar transistors and may, consequently, lead to a reduction in lifetime. To address this reliability issue, a model integration is established in MATLAB/Simulink, which includes a doubly fed induction generator (DFIG), an aerodynamic model, a drive train model, and a pitch control system. A detailed model of a three-phase converter is adopted for thermal modeling and lifetime estimation. A low-pass filter is utilized to improve the lifetime consumption of the rotor-side converter control in the active power loop in the DFIG. The simulation results indicate that the resulting reliability performance of the system has been significantly improved. Moreover, the capacity factor has been estimated.