Solid state circuit breaker investigation

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This project is feasibility study on the development of intelligent, robust and fast acting semiconductor driven breakers to protect power distribution systems. Silicon Carbide (SiC) power devices are an emerging wide bandgap semiconductor technology with superior physical properties that are suited for high current, high voltage and high temperature applications. In particular, this project will study various driving techniques for parallel SiC power MOSFETs to produce low loss, high current (>100A) electronic circuit breakers for Smart Grid applications. This project will be carried out in three phases. The first phase is to study state of the art SiC power device technology. A report will be prepared for Volta Energy with information on the range of commercially available power devices, their strengths and weaknesses, their associated losses, and any trade-off between conduction loss and switching losses. In the second phase, a selection of SiC power MOSFETs will be characterized and their suitability for the implementation of low on-resistance, high current electronic circuit breaker will be determined. More specifically, the current sharing characteristics of the power MOSFETs over a wide range of operating temperatures will be studied. In order to avoid the current imbalance problem that is common in the paralleling of multiple power MOSFETs, special gate driving techniques will be examined. In phase three, a prototype development platform for the evaluation of different circuit breakers using parallel array of SiC power MOSFETs will be constructed and characterized. In particular, power losses, temperature profile, thermal runaway issues will be studied. The outcome of this project will be a demonstration of the viability of developing and producing SiC-based electronic circuit breakers.