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Optically
Isolated High Voltage Integrated Gate Bipolar Transition-Based 5-MW Cascaded
Inverter for Distributed Energy Resources (DER) Applications--Airak, Inc.,
Mr. Paul Grems Duncan, Principal Investigator, pduncan@airak.com
Mr. Paul Grems Duncan, Business Official, pduncan@airak.com
DOE Grant No. DE-FG02-01ER83142
Amount: $750,000
High power applications typically use power converters that are large, expensive, difficult to control, and present significant engineering challenges as power density and power capacity increase. Gate Turn Off thyristor systems, including variants that utilize Emitter Turn Off thyristors and Integrated Gate Commutated thyristors, exhibit slow switching speeds, have poor reverse bias safe operating area, and require high gate currents to turn the devices off. These traits limit their usefulness in high power applications, especially where higher switching frequencies are desired. This project will develop an optically isolated, mega-watt level, cascaded inverter based upon recent advances in optical sensors, optical interconnects, and High-Voltage Integrated Gate Bipolar Transistors (HV-IGBTs). In Phase 1, a prototype full-bridge megawatt inverter was developed, based upon newly available HV-IGBTs, and combined with optical sensing, interfacing, and control. Design parameters were established for maximum voltages, currents, harmonics, and switching frequencies. Phase II will develop a prototype, full-bridge, megawatt inverter with greater than 98% efficiency, and with higher reliability and a smaller footprint compared to thyristor inverters.
Commercial
Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee:
The modularized HV-IBGT inverter should offer significant benefits over
the conventional thyristor-based inverter, reducing
productivity losses due to “voltage sags” and momentary outages that affect
most industrial and commercial customers such as semiconductor manufacturers,
telecommunications, banks, restaurants, and hospitals.
These productivity losses exceed $10 billion/year in the