Advanced Modular Inverter Technology Development
Electric and hybrid-electric vehicle systems require an inverter to convert the direct current (DC) output of the energy generation/storage system (engine, fuel cells, or batteries) to the alternating current (AC) that vehicle propulsion motors use. Vehicle support systems, such as lights and air conditioning, also use the inverter AC output. Distributed energy systems require an inverter to provide the high quality AC output that energy system customers demand. Today's inverters are expensive due to the cost of the power electronics components, and system designers must also tailor the inverter for individual applications. Thus, the benefits of mass production are not available, resulting in high initial procurement costs as well as high inverter maintenance and repair costs. Electricore, Inc. (www.electricore.org) a public good 501 (c) (3) not-for-profit advanced technology development consortium assembled a highly qualified team consisting of AeroVironment Inc. (www.aerovironment.com) and Delphi Automotive Systems LLC (Delphi), (www.delphi.com), as equal tiered technical leads, to develop an advanced, modular construction, inverter packaging technology that will offer a 30% cost reduction over conventional designs adding to the development of energy conversion technologies for crosscutting applications in the building, industry, transportation, and utility sectors. The proposed inverter allows for a reduction of weight and size of power electronics in the above-mentioned sectors and is scalable over the range of 15 to 500kW. The main objective of this program was to optimize existing AeroVironment inverter technology to improve power density, reliability and producibility as well as develop new topology to reduce line filter size. The newly developed inverter design will be used in automotive and distribution generation applications. In the first part of this program the high-density power stages were redesigned, optimized and fabricated. One of the main tasks was to design and validate new gate drive circuits to provide the capability of high temp operation. The new power stages and controls were later validated through extensive performance, durability and environmental tests. To further validate the design, two power stages and controls were integrated into a grid-tied load bank test fixture, a real application for field-testing. This fixture was designed to test motor drives with PWM output up to 50kW. In the second part of this program the new control topology based on sub-phases control and interphase transformer technology was successfully developed and validated. The main advantage of this technology is to reduce magnetic mass, loss and current ripple. This report summarizes the results of the advanced modular inverter technology development and details: (1) Power stage development and fabrication (2) Power stage validation testing (3) Grid-tied test fixture fabrication and initial testing (4) Interphase transformer technology development
- Research Organization:
- Electricore, Inc.
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- FC26-04NT41972
- OSTI ID:
- 898117
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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