Reliability of Power Electronics in PV Systems: Design and Control solutions (2024)
Doctoral School of Engineering and Science at Aalborg University
Organizer: Assistant Professor Ariya Sangwongwanich ars@et.aau.dk
Lecturers: Assist. Prof. Ariya Sangwongwanich
ECTS: 2
Date/Time: 06/06/2024 – 07/06/2024
Deadline: 16/05/2024
Place: AAU Energy, Aalborg campus - Pontoppidanstraede 101 room 1.015 Aalborg, Denmark
Max no. of participants: 30
Description: Power electronics are essential for power conversion of Photovoltaic (PV) systems and their reliability of power electronics systems strongly affects the availability and consequently the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of PV energy. According to field experience, the power electronics systems (e.g., PV inverter) are among the most fragile parts in PV systems that contribute to a majority of system downtime. With the demand to further reduce the cost of PV energy, the reliability of power electronics in PV systems needs to be improved to reduce the (unexpected) failure in field operation. This calls for a better design methodology as well as a proper control strategy.
This PhD course aims to address the reliability challenge and solution for power electronics in PV applications. It will cover the design aspects related to power electronics reliability for PV systems. A step-by-step modeling approach from mission profile to the reliability performance (e.g., failure rates) will be introduced. The reliability of key components such as power devices and dc-link capacitors will be elaborated in details, and solutions to enhance their reliability through the design and control methods will be discussed and demonstrated. Moreover, emerging solutions and new technology to further enhance the reliability performance of the power electronics in PV applications will be also be covered in the lecture.
Day 1: Lecturer - Ariya
LL1 - Power electronics in PV application
LL2 - Failure and critical components in PV systems
LL3 - Reliability engineering for power electronics
LL4 - Mission profile-based reliability evaluation of PV inverters
Exercise 1 (Mission profile-based lifetime evaluation)
Day 2: Lecturer - Ariya
LL5 – System-level reliability analysis with Monte Carlo simulation
Exercise 2 (System-level reliability assessment with Monte Carlo simulation)
LL6 - Impact of mission profile dynamics and thermal model
LL7 - Impact of PV module sizing and mission profile variations
LL8 - Control for reliability of PV inverter
LL9 - Emerging Technologies and Trends
Wrap up & Continue exercise
Prerequisites
- Basic knowledge of power electronics circuit and electrical engineering
- Basic knowledge of circuit simulation software, e.g., Matlab/Simulink, PLECS
Form of evaluation
- Report from the exercise session during the class