As Infineon advances its options for solar energy inverters, a comparability of topology and chip sorts exhibits that the corporate’s silicon carbide expertise leads to a discount in filter inductance dimension, weight , and value whereas additionally enabling fanless designs.
Infineon lately launched the second technology of silicon carbide (SiC) expertise, which the corporate says guarantees to additional enhance the effectivity of hybrid inverters and set new benchmarks in figures of advantage (FoMs ). The firm’s three-phase hybrid inverter options optimize the usage of solar energy, particularly for energy technology wants as much as 30 kW.
“Of course, a photovoltaic inverter system consists of many constructing blocks, akin to management, connection, and sensing applied sciences together with the completely different phases of energy conversion,” stated Dominik Bilo, Executive Vice President of Infineon and CSO of its Industrial & Infrastructure section. “Infineon now gives appropriate elements for all these areas, mixed in a novel system method.”
Photovoltaic (PV) techniques are one of many linchpins of power switch, and inverters join them to the general public grid. In its easiest model, an inverter consists of a DC-DC increase converter to stabilize the voltage of the PV arrays and a DC-AC inverter for connection to the grid. Infineon notes that hybrid inverters with as much as 30 kW output energy may help customers obtain photo voltaic self-consumption utilizing 30% much less supplies and as much as 40% extra much less area whereas lowering the complexity required to construct PV techniques.
These units not solely convert DC to AC like string inverters, however they will additionally present energy in its DC type on to an power storage system (ESS) like a battery. , thus avoiding extreme energy conversions and chopping power losses and materials prices. A key focus is on lowering the system’s invoice of supplies (BoM) by incorporating a high-efficiency DC-DC converter stage for charging and discharging the battery. Infineon has printed a white paper detailing the results of semiconductor options for string and hybrid inverters.
The selection is vital when contemplating the topology and chip expertise contained in the DC-AC inverter block. Compared to conventional silicon applied sciences, two-level topologies expertise measurably heavy losses in switching effectivity at frequencies above 8 kHz. In distinction, the three-level NPC-1 and NPC-2 topologies stand out when it comes to effectivity and low energy loss (Figure 1). The three-level NPC-1 topology helps operations above 24 kHz, whereas the three-level NPC-2 is perfect for frequencies beneath this threshold.
Image: Infineon
When evaluating the topologies utilizing hybrid and SiC chip expertise, Infineon says that utilizing a three-level NPC-2 topology with hybrid and SiC options allows the designer to additional enhance the velocity to switch to 2 instances quicker than the silicon answer – nevertheless, the losses stay the identical (Figure 1 and Table 1). In normal, the rise in the price of the facility semiconductor could be compensated by lowering the dimensions of the inductance of the filter, weight, and the associated fee that’s created by the elevated operation of the switching frequency. In addition, a decrease working temperature reduces the dimensions of the housing and allows fanless designs.
Such options make an enormous distinction in residential and business installations, the place quieter and smaller techniques are wanted. Infineon emphasizes that the final word discount within the quantity of supplies required permits producers to create lighter and extra environment friendly hybrid inverters.
Image: Infineon
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