High efficient high density multilevel packed u-cell power electronics converter for renewable energy conversion

世界上不断增长的电力需求必然要求将更多的可再生能源(光伏和风能)收集到现有的电网中。每个光伏或风电场都必须利用电力电子逆变器将可用的直流电流转换为用户可以使用的固定频率固定交流电压值。全桥两电平变流器等标准技术是市场上的主要参与者，人们不断分析和研究这些技术在转换效率、功率损耗、电能质量和制造成本等各个方面的可能改善。输出电压的高次谐波含量以及庞大的滤波器仍然是一个限制因素。如今，在电力电子变流器中使用更多的功率开关被称为多电平变流器是一项具有竞争力的技术，它导致在输出端产生更多的电压电平，从而降低谐波，输出滤波器的尺寸更小，更紧凑，封装尺寸更小，制造成本更低。这种多电平拓扑产生低谐波波形；因此，它们最适合用于能量转换，以从可再生能源(如光伏系统)向负载提供高效电力。2011年，Al-Haddad发明了一种名为Pack U-Cell(PUC)转换器结构的新技术，它可以克服上述问题。这种功率密度高、重量轻、具有自平衡特性的新型多电平变流器将被开发和测试，用于太阳能转换应用和多个直流电源的接口，以连接箱内的智能功率变流器与接口的交流电源或在高功率密度下独立运行。该项目的目标是开发具有智能即插即用并行能力的3 kW电路板，并采用200 kHz工作的GaN功率器件新技术，集成到高功率密度250瓦/立方英寸中。太阳能板将以96%的效率收集太阳能

Growing electric power demand in the world requires necessarily more harvesting of renewable energy (PV and Wind) resources into the existing grid. Each PV or wind farm should necessarily make use of power electronics inverters to convert the available DC current into a fixed-frequency fixed- AC voltage magnitude usable by the consumers.Standard technology such as full-bridge two-level converters are the main players in the market which have being continuously analyzed and investigated for any possible improvements in various aspects such as conversion efficiency, power losses, power quality and manufacturing costs. High harmonic content of output voltage still a matter of limitation along with bulky filter.Nowadays, using more power switches in power electronic converters called 'multilevel converters' is a competitive technology which leads to produce more voltage levels at the output and consequently lower harmonics, smaller size of the output filters, more compact, package size, and lower manufacturing cost. Such multilevel topologies generate low harmonic waveforms; therefore they are most suitable for energy conversion to deliver efficient power to the loads from renewable energy resources like photovoltaic systems. A new technology, which permit to overcome the above-mentioned issues, named Packed U-Cell (PUC) converter structure has been invented by Al-Haddad in 2011. This new topology of multilevel converter which has high power density capability, light weight along with the self-balancing characteristics will be developed and tested for solar conversion application and for interfacing multiple DC sources to connect smart power converter in the box with interfacing ac sources or in stand alone operation at high power density reaching. The project target 3 kW boards with intelligent plug and play parallelizing capability will be developed, and integrated in high power density 250 Watts per cubic inches using the new technology of GaN power devices operating at 200 kHz. The board will harvest solar power at an efficiency of 96%