Electromagnetic Interference Filter Design for a 100 kW Silicon Carbide Photovoltaic Inverter Without Switching Harmonics Filter

Abstract

The design of electromagnetic interference (EMI) filter with smaller size and lightweight for a high efficiency and high power density 100 kW SiC five-level T-type (5LT2) photovoltaic (PV) inverter becomes more challenging due to the increased EMI noise resulted by high switching frequency, fast switching transients, and the removal of LCL filter. This paper proposes an unbalanced Wheatstone bridge and a two-stage notch filter to attenuate the increased common mode (CM) and differential mode (DM) noise respectively. The conventional Wheatstone bridge will suffer size and weight penalty for 100 kW PV converter due to the high parasitic capacitance of the 100 kW PV panel. An unbalanced Wheatstone bridge with a one-stage LC filter is therefore developed to address this issue and reduce the total CM inductance. The proposed two-stage notch filter is designed to achieve high attenuation, solve its parameter variation issue and help reduce the size and weight of DM filter. The total weight of the designed EMI filter for this 100 kW PV inverter is 3.54 kg. The measured conducted EMI spectrum of the 100 kW SiC PV inverter with and without proposed EMI filter are provided to validate the effectiveness of the EMI filter design.