Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZMSOlar, Protosol
When developing merchantable power electronic systems, a multitude of partial conflicting requirements must be taken into account. High efficiency, robustness, reliability, low cost, long life, high power density and good EMC behaviour have to be valued and weighed against each other for a specific application.
Aim of the joint project SOlar is the development of methodologies for simulation and design for fast and targeted designing of power electronics systems. They shall help avoiding unnecessary and expensive recursions during the development of new, high efficient power electronics systems in an early stage by validated simulation models and optimizing strategies. The different simulation tools for constructive, thermal, electric and electromagnetic design shall be improved and connected better amongst themselves.
To validate the developed models, Fraunhofer IZM built and tested a 15kW solar converter. The intended peak efficiency lays at 98.5%, EU efficiency at 97.5%. 98.6% were achieved in the end.
The SiC chips allow for 48kHz switching frequency which leads to a radical volume reduction of the passives, especially the chokes and dc-link capacitors. This allows for furthermore affordable devices, because the costs for SiC will decrease in the future while the costs for copper will increase.
Overall volume of the demonstrator could be reduced by about 70% compared the market leaders for solar converters. Overall weight lays at about 15kg.
