Optimal passive filter topology for advanced power electronics converters

电力电子变流器是一种广泛应用于电能的产生、传输、分配和消费过程的技术。为了实现减少二氧化碳排放的目标，预计电力电子转换器的使用将在电能使用的各个阶段变得更加普遍。在英国，2011年的一份政府报告强调，60%的电力消耗来自工业电动机。在使用工业电机的案例中，有一半被确定为具有通过应用电力电子转换器提高效率的潜力，这可能导致国家能源消耗减少9%。这些应用所需的转换器将连接到电网，因此需要符合限制它们可以引入电网的电气噪声量的规定。为了满足这些要求，必须使用无源滤波器，这在尺寸、成本、效率和开发时间方面可能是转换器设计的限制部分。因此，高性能变换器也需要高性能滤波器，而滤波器的优化设计是一个非常重要的课题。这项研究将集中于寻找新的、系统的方法来设计并网电源变流器的最佳滤波器。最佳滤波器设计是一个既定的主题，但它往往依赖于个人的设计经验，或昂贵和耗时的试错方法。这项研究将寻求产生一套方法，以允许系统地设计各种转换器拓扑、规格和设计的最佳滤波器。开发这些方法的目的是形成一个设计框架，以根据转换器规范选择最佳滤波器拓扑和组件。这个框架应该能够自动化。此外，所开发的方法将用于新兴技术。这些新兴技术包括宽带隙功率器件，它可以在比硅器件高得多的频率下工作，为滤波器设计带来了新的挑战。除了这些新的功率器件外，还将探索新的转换器拓扑结构并将其包含在开发的方法中。特别令人感兴趣的新拓扑是多级转换器，因为它们影响最佳滤波器拓扑和设计。实现这些目标可以将最佳滤波器设计与单个设计师的专业知识和试错设计方法分离开来，同时扩展用于新兴电源转换器技术的系统设计方法。这项研究主要属于EPSRC的电机和驱动研究领域，因为它探索了一项与工业电机和驱动部门直接相关的技术，已经被认为是英国电力和电机使用的主要部分。由于并网电源转换器的广泛应用，包括太阳能光伏逆变器、电动汽车充电器和电池储能系统，这项研究与EPSRC能源研究主题中其他新兴和成熟的研究领域有直接的相似之处。

Power electronic converters are a widely used technology in the processes required for generation, transmission, distribution and consumption of electrical energy. In order to achieve targets of reducing CO2 emissions, the use of power electronic converters is expected to become even more prevalent in all stages of electrical energy use. In the UK, a 2011 government report highlighted that 60% of all electrical energy consumption comes from industrial electric motors. Of the cases where industrial motors are used, half were identified as having the potential for efficiency increases through the application of power electronic converters, which could result in a 9% reduction of national energy consumption. The converters needed for these applications will be connected to the electrical grid and so will be required to conform to regulations limiting the amount of electrical noise they can introduce onto the grid. Meeting these requirements necessitates the use of passive filters, which can be a limiting part of converter designs in terms of size, cost, efficiency and time to develop. As a result, high performance converters will also need high performance filters, and the optimal design of filters is a topic of great importance.This research will focus on finding new, systematic methods to design optimal filters for grid connected power converters. Optimal filter design is an established topic, however it is often reliant on the design experience of individuals, or costly and time consuming trial-and-error methods. This research would seek to produce a set of methods to allow systematic design of optimal filters for a variety of converter topologies, specifications and designs. These methods would be developed with the intention of forming a design framework to select an optimal filter topology and components, based upon a converter specification. This framework should be able to be automated. Furthermore, methods developed will be intended for use with emerging technologies. These emerging technologies include wide bandgap power devices which can operate at significantly higher frequencies than silicon devices, introducing new challenges for filter designs. Alongside these new power devices, new converter topologies will be explored and included in the developed methods. New topologies of particular interest are multi-level converters, as these influence the optimal filter topology and design. Achieving these goals would decouple optimal filter design from individual designer expertise and trial-and-error design methods, whilst expanding the systematic design methods for use with emerging power converter technologies.This research primarily comes under the remit of the EPSRC's Electrical Motor and Drives research area, as it explores a technology directly relevant to the industrial electric motor and drives sector, already noted to be a major part of the UKs use of electricity and electrical motors. Due to the broader uses of grid connected power converters, including solar PV inverters, EV chargers and battery electric storage systems, this research has direct parallels to other emerging and established research areas within the EPSRC's Energy research theme.