MW-range PCS for efficient operation of large PV plants — High efficiency and less maintenance works

Abstract

The paper introduces development of the high power inverters for the Power Conditioning System (PCS) for the large scale Photo Voltaic (PV) power plants. At first, the paper introduces a 500kW PCS with very high efficiency of 98.5%. The PCS also offers wide operation range in DC voltage and current. The wide operation range enhances the performance of the Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) control to draw out the power from the PV cells as much as possible. Thus, the 500kW PCS maximizes the PV plant system efficiency. The key factors are the latest power semiconductor technology and circuit topology applied to the 500kW PCS. Then, secondly, the paper introduces a 100kW PCS cooled only by natural convection. This is the world first PCS eliminating the cooling fans, in this capacity range, realized by two key factors, loss reduction and sophisticated cooling design. This technology greatly reduces the maintenance works during the PV PCS life cycle and thus contributes efficient operation of PV plants. The cooling design and evaluation results are introduced in the paper. The 500kW and 100kW PCSs are expected to contribute highly efficient operation of large scale PV plants for its life cycle.