Evaluation of 6.5-kV SiC p-i-n Diodes in a Medium-Voltage, High-Power 3L-NPC Converter

Abstract

This study is focused on evaluating the advantages of 6.5-kV SiC p-i-n diodes in a 4.16-kV, 8-MVA neutral point clamped (NPC) voltage source converter. Electrothermal models of the power semiconductors are elaborated based on measurement data of a SiC diode module prototype, as well as of commercial Si devices. These models are integrated into a converter simulation, where the junction temperatures of each device are used to determine the maximum power output under different device configurations. For the analysis, a parallel connection of two 6.5-kV insulated-gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) as well as a series connection of two 3.3-kV IGBTs are considered as switches. The influence of the current change rate during the IGBT turn-on is also studied. SiC p-i-n diodes are used as a replacement for the NPC diodes of the converter and as antiparallel diodes in IGBT modules. The results obtained indicate that an increase in the output power of 17% can be achieved using SiC NPC diodes for the studied current change rates. Alternatively, for a constant output power, the switching frequency of the converter can be increased by 69%, reducing the converter size and system costs by the use of smaller filters.