Design and Evaluation of a Battery-Supported Electric Drivetrain for Kite-Based High-Altitude Wind Energy Conversion

Abstract

High-altitude wind energy (HAWE) gains more and more interest. The control of kitebased HAWE is widely covered in literature whereas its influence on the power electronic components of the drivetrain has not been investigated so far. In this paper, we present an electro-thermal loss model of the power electronic converters of a kite generator system (KGS). Junction temperatures and converter efficiency are simulated for an exemplary KGS load profile. The required component ratings are calculated with focus on the machine-side converter (MSC) which suffers from application-related stresses. Variable switching frequency and increase of generator pole-pair number are investigated to reduce the MSC power rating.