Advanced High-Power Systems for Medium-Voltage Motor Drives

为了在满足日益增长的电能需求的同时减少对环境的影响，未来的电力系统将需要更加节能。大功率电机驱动是电能的主要消耗者，在节能方面有很大的改进潜力。这一进步的关键是电力电子技术的进步。这项拟议的研究将专注于推进电力电子技术的最先进水平，这些技术工作在电机驱动应用的中压(MV)范围内(2.3至15千伏)。*大功率中压驱动在石油和天然气、化工、采矿和金属、水泥、发电和公用事业、牵引以及食品和饮料行业有广泛的应用。能源效率、电能质量、成本、体积、可靠性、故障保护以及安装和维护的简易性是大功率中压电机驱动电力电子技术发展面临的主要挑战。现有的基于多电平结构的中压电力电子变流器虽然具有传统变流器无法比拟的优点，但其电压水平仍被限制在6.9KV以下。这是由于市场上现有的功率半导体在额定电压方面的局限性以及目前多电平中压功率转换器的结构所致。现有的较高电压解决方案需要使用复杂的变压器，效率不高，或者使用模块化拓扑，元件数量大幅增加，不划算和可靠。*拟议的研究计划将重点放在一系列新颖的模块化和可扩展的功率转换结构上，以进一步扩展适用于更高电压(&gt；6.9kv)应用的中压驱动器，从而提高效率、性能、成本、尺寸、重量、可靠性和故障检测能力。预计该研究计划的理论结果和成功实施将提供一套新的电力电子拓扑和先进的控制技术，以在大功率中压驱动领域引入新技术，从而为使用工业电机的所有部门带来显着的节能效果。这项研究计划还将有助于培养具备所需知识和技术技能的下一代电力工程师，为地方和国家的企业和行业做出贡献。

To meet the growing demand for electrical energy while reducing environmental impact, electrical systems of the future will need to be much more energy efficient. High-power electric motor drives are the major consumers of electrical energy and they have significant potential for improvement in terms of energy saving. The key to this improvement is advances in power electronics technology. The proposed research will focus on advancing the state-of-the-art in power electronic technologies that operate in the medium-voltage (MV) range (2.3 to 15kV) for motor drive applications.******High-power MV drives have a wide range of applications in the oil and gas, chemicals, mining and metals, cement, power generation and utilities, traction, and food and beverage industries. Energy efficiency, power quality, cost, size, reliability, fault protection, and easy installation and maintenance are the main challenges in the development of power electronics for high-power MV motor drives. Although existing MV power electronic converters based on the concept of multilevel structure have advantages over the conventional converters, their voltage level is still limited to 6.9kV. This is because of the limitation in voltage rating of the available power semiconductors in the market and the structure of the current multilevel MV power converters. The existing solutions for higher voltage need to employ a complex transformer, which is not efficient, or use a modular topology with a significant increase in the number of components which is not cost-effective and reliable. ******The proposed research program will focus on a novel family of modular and scalable power conversion structure for further expansion of MV drives for higher voltage (>6.9kV) applications with improved efficiency, performance, cost, size, weight, reliability, and fault detection capability. It is expected that the theoretical results and the successful implementation of this proposed research program will provide a new set of power electronic topologies and advanced control techniques to introduce new technologies in the area of high-power MV drives which will produce significant energy savings for all sectors using industrial electric motors. This research program will also help to educate the next generation of power engineers with required knowledge and technical skills to contribute to local and national businesses and industries.