Ultra-High Voltage Silicon Carbide Thyristor Converters for Offshore Wind

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Reliability and cost-effectiveness are vital to the growth of the offshore wind industry and to realise the UK's targets for 2020. Power Electronics Converters are a key part of modern wind turbines, accounting for 10 % of their cost, 15 % of losses, and 12 % of failure rate. Hence improving converters' cost, efficiency and reliability is important to achieve lower Cost of Energy (CoE) from offshore wind power. Zagres' new Thyristor design based on advanced Ultra-High Voltage Silicon Carbide (UHV SiC) technology can offer a major contribution in realising these improvements: our preliminary assessments have shown 7.4% lower CoE and 12% lower failure rate can be achieved. This project will study the feasibility of UHV SiC Thyristor technology, proven in concept at laboratory scale, and assess its performance on a real 20 kW wind turbine, for the first time. The project will set the foundation for the follow-on exploitation: development and testing for larger size wind converters.