Design considerations for the 2- phase cooling system of a 5 MW MVDC converter

2021-08-11T16:57:57+02:00October 11th, 2018|Electronique de puissance & convertisseurs, Publications|

This presentation will provide an update on our current project: designing a cooler for a high power (5 MW) MVDC converter for offshore wind turbines applications. A number of constraints are imposed, mainly related to a limited volume, environmental, safety and health regulations, and of course cooling performance. Indeed, as we presented last year (ATW 2017), the silicon carbide power semiconductors used in this converter should operate at a junction temperature lower than 100 °C for better efficiency.

CIGRE Young Members organizing a visit at SuperGrid Institute

2021-08-11T16:30:53+02:00October 8th, 2018|Evenement|

Once a year, CIGRE young members France, organizes industrial, onsite visits where academics, engineers and experts can share and discuss with scholars. This year, SuperGrid Institute has accepted to host this meeting on our premises on the 18th of October 2018.

Measurement and Analysis of SiC-MOSFET threshold voltage shift

2021-08-11T17:37:46+02:00October 4th, 2018|Conference, Electronique de puissance & convertisseurs|

Gate-oxide technology weakness is a main reliability issue of Silicon Carbide MOSFET transistors. The threshold voltage shift is a critical phenomenon that addresses the reliability of industrial power applications. It is important to have a better understanding of the phenomena implied in the gate threshold voltage shift. In this context, HTGB test is proposed and the resulting gate oxide stress is studied and discussed in this paper.

SuperGrid Institute investigates the performance of different environmentally friendly insulating gases

2021-08-11T17:23:40+02:00September 27th, 2018|Comuniqué de presse, Tout|

As part of PROMOTioN, Super Grid Institute (France) investigates the performance of different environmentally friendly insulating gases

PhD Etienne OUSS “Characterization of Partial Discharges and Defect Identification in High-Voltage Direct Current GIS”

2021-08-11T17:42:53+02:00September 25th, 2018|Appareillage électrique haute tension, Phd, Tout|

This thesis aimed to characterize partial discharges in DC gas-insulated substations, and to develop an automatic defect identification tool. The first step of this work was the development of a partial discharge measuring bench. The complete study has been performed in a GIS section, so that the results can be directly applied to industrial equipment.

Analysis of the Lower Limit of Allowable Energy in Modular Multilevel Converters

2021-08-11T16:58:15+02:00September 21st, 2018|Architecture & systèmes du supergrid, Publications|

In this paper, a thorough analysis of the converter arm behavior is presented, which gives an analytic expression of the lower limit of the energy as a function of the converter operating point and the connected grid conditions. The relation between the lower energy limit and the operating power is analyzed by using the practical MMC specifications of an HVDC application. An experimental test of a small-scale MMC mock-up demonstrates the validity of the theoretical analysis.

Repetitive short-circuit measurement on SiC MOSFET

2021-08-11T17:37:53+02:00September 7th, 2018|Conference, Electronique de puissance & convertisseurs|

Robustness study for the 1.7 kV SiC MOSFET is presented. After evaluation of the critical energy required for failure, devices were submitted to repetitive short-circuits conditions.

Models of AC and DC cable systems for technical and economic evaluation of offshore wind farm connection

2021-08-11T16:58:23+02:00September 3rd, 2018|Appareillage électrique haute tension, Publications, Systèmes de câbles haute tension|

Accurate cable modeling is a recurrent issue for electric architecture evaluation and design, especially in specific contexts, like offshore wind farms. This paper proposes optimal analytical cable models for the technical and economic assessment of offshore wind generation systems.

Virtual capacitor for DC grid stability enhancement

2021-08-11T16:58:33+02:00August 31st, 2018|Appareillage électrique haute tension, Architecture & systèmes du supergrid, Publications|

With a growing number of commercial installations around the world, HVDC technology increased its presence and importance in the power systems. Among various converter topologies, the Modular Multilevel Converters (MMCs) are considered as the most suitable one for HVDC application today. Besides its recognised advantages over conventional converters, the MMC has an interesting extra degree of freedom, which is the energy stored in the distributed cell capacitors. Although the amount of this energy is relatively small, it can provide a significant contribution to the DC system stability when properly used. This paper presents experiment results that demonstrate the effectiveness of virtual capacitor control. This control, previously proposed by the authors, makes use of the above additional degree of freedom to attenuate fluctuations of the DC voltage, which tend to be inherently volatile against power disturbances compared to the frequency of conventional AC systems. Under the virtual capacitor control, the MMC behaves as if there were a capacitor on the DC side of the converter whose size is easily adjusted by the control variable and can be even bigger than the physical capacitor actually embedded in the converter. In practice, the emulation of the capacitor dynamics is realised by the auxiliary control which adjusts the exchange of the energy between the stacked cell capacitors and the DC grid during the transient. Thus, no adverse effect is imposed on the AC grid. Furthermore, the system operator can optionally adjust the equivalent capacitance of the system to achieve desired mitigation level of DC voltage fluctuation during the operation. Therefore, this additional degree of freedom can largely extend the operability of the DC systems. The feasibility and effectiveness of the virtual capacitor control is demonstrated by experimental results obtained by using a small-scale MMC prototype.

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