The impact of silicon carbide technology on grid-connected Distributed Energy resources

Abstract

Distributed Energy sources can be connected to the electrical grid using power electronic converters traditionally implemented in silicon insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs), gate turn-off thyristors (GTOs) and PiN diodes. However, recently developed SiC technology can improve energy conversion efficiency as well as power density. To investigate the benefits provided by SiC technology, experimentally calibrated SiC MOSFET models have been modeled in multilevel voltage sourced converters (VSCs) to analyze the generated harmonics, converter temperature rise, switching losses and filtering requirements. Models show that converters implemented in SiC MOSFETs operate at 25-75% less temperature compared with silicon IGBTs, potentially simplifying cooling. Also, SiC MOSFETs generate ~2% less THD for the same switching frequency and can reduce the switching loss by up to 82% compared to silicon devices.