Prospects and Challenges of 4H-SiC Thyristors in Protection of HB-MMC-VSC-HVDC Converters

Chengjun Shen; Saeed Jahdi; Olayiwola Alatise; Jose Angel Ortiz Gonzalez; Avinash Aithal; Phil Mellor

doi:10.1109/OJPEL.2021.3060942

Prospects and Challenges of 4H-SiC Thyristors in Protection of HB-MMC-VSC-HVDC Converters

Chengjun Shen^*, Saeed Jahdi, Olayiwola Alatise, Jose Angel Ortiz Gonzalez, Avinash Aithal, Phil Mellor

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review

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Abstract

Pole-to-pole DC faults on HB-MMC-VSC-HVDC schemes impose significant risk of cascade failure on IGBT/diode pairs. Other novel topologies with fault blocking capability, i.e. AAC converters, and DC circuit breakers are not yet
fully matured. Therefore, silicon thyristors are used to bypass the DC faults until AC breakers activate. However, silicon thyristors are also at risk of failure due to the capacitor voltage collapse at high junction temperatures caused due to imbalanced reverse recovery current conduction. Hence, the recovery cycles are included as part of IEC standard 62501 HVDC type-test program. Emergence of commercial Silicon Carbide (SiC) thyristors has the potential to tackle this risk. This paper investigates such opportunities and challenges by accurately modeling the performance of thyristors at fault. It was seen that SiC thyristors with acceptable surge current and reverse blocking capability can eliminate the failure mode of silicon thyristors due to minimal recovery stored charge, resulting in an equal share of reverse voltage on all thyristors.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	145-154
Number of pages	10
Journal	IEEE Open Journal of Power Electronics
Volume	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/OJPEL.2021.3060942
Publication status	Published - 22 Feb 2021

Keywords

Thyristors
Silicon carbide
Circuit faults
Silicon
Insulated gate bipolar transistors
Topology
Fault currents

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@article{7a13c0d09c35467a90fc55f34983f49d,

title = "Prospects and Challenges of 4H-SiC Thyristors in Protection of HB-MMC-VSC-HVDC Converters",

abstract = "Pole-to-pole DC faults on HB-MMC-VSC-HVDC schemes impose significant risk of cascade failure on IGBT/diode pairs. Other novel topologies with fault blocking capability, i.e. AAC converters, and DC circuit breakers are not yetfully matured. Therefore, silicon thyristors are used to bypass the DC faults until AC breakers activate. However, silicon thyristors are also at risk of failure due to the capacitor voltage collapse at high junction temperatures caused due to imbalanced reverse recovery current conduction. Hence, the recovery cycles are included as part of IEC standard 62501 HVDC type-test program. Emergence of commercial Silicon Carbide (SiC) thyristors has the potential to tackle this risk. This paper investigates such opportunities and challenges by accurately modeling the performance of thyristors at fault. It was seen that SiC thyristors with acceptable surge current and reverse blocking capability can eliminate the failure mode of silicon thyristors due to minimal recovery stored charge, resulting in an equal share of reverse voltage on all thyristors.",

keywords = "Thyristors, Silicon carbide, Circuit faults, Silicon, Insulated gate bipolar transistors, Topology, Fault currents",

author = "Chengjun Shen and Saeed Jahdi and Olayiwola Alatise and {Ortiz Gonzalez}, {Jose Angel} and Avinash Aithal and Phil Mellor",

year = "2021",

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day = "22",

doi = "10.1109/OJPEL.2021.3060942",

language = "English",

volume = "2",

pages = "145--154",

journal = "IEEE Open Journal of Power Electronics",

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TY - JOUR

T1 - Prospects and Challenges of 4H-SiC Thyristors in Protection of HB-MMC-VSC-HVDC Converters

AU - Shen, Chengjun

AU - Jahdi, Saeed

AU - Alatise, Olayiwola

AU - Ortiz Gonzalez, Jose Angel

AU - Aithal, Avinash

AU - Mellor, Phil

PY - 2021/2/22

Y1 - 2021/2/22

N2 - Pole-to-pole DC faults on HB-MMC-VSC-HVDC schemes impose significant risk of cascade failure on IGBT/diode pairs. Other novel topologies with fault blocking capability, i.e. AAC converters, and DC circuit breakers are not yetfully matured. Therefore, silicon thyristors are used to bypass the DC faults until AC breakers activate. However, silicon thyristors are also at risk of failure due to the capacitor voltage collapse at high junction temperatures caused due to imbalanced reverse recovery current conduction. Hence, the recovery cycles are included as part of IEC standard 62501 HVDC type-test program. Emergence of commercial Silicon Carbide (SiC) thyristors has the potential to tackle this risk. This paper investigates such opportunities and challenges by accurately modeling the performance of thyristors at fault. It was seen that SiC thyristors with acceptable surge current and reverse blocking capability can eliminate the failure mode of silicon thyristors due to minimal recovery stored charge, resulting in an equal share of reverse voltage on all thyristors.

AB - Pole-to-pole DC faults on HB-MMC-VSC-HVDC schemes impose significant risk of cascade failure on IGBT/diode pairs. Other novel topologies with fault blocking capability, i.e. AAC converters, and DC circuit breakers are not yetfully matured. Therefore, silicon thyristors are used to bypass the DC faults until AC breakers activate. However, silicon thyristors are also at risk of failure due to the capacitor voltage collapse at high junction temperatures caused due to imbalanced reverse recovery current conduction. Hence, the recovery cycles are included as part of IEC standard 62501 HVDC type-test program. Emergence of commercial Silicon Carbide (SiC) thyristors has the potential to tackle this risk. This paper investigates such opportunities and challenges by accurately modeling the performance of thyristors at fault. It was seen that SiC thyristors with acceptable surge current and reverse blocking capability can eliminate the failure mode of silicon thyristors due to minimal recovery stored charge, resulting in an equal share of reverse voltage on all thyristors.

KW - Thyristors

KW - Silicon carbide

KW - Circuit faults

KW - Silicon

KW - Insulated gate bipolar transistors

KW - Topology

KW - Fault currents

U2 - 10.1109/OJPEL.2021.3060942

DO - 10.1109/OJPEL.2021.3060942

M3 - Article (Academic Journal)

VL - 2

SP - 145

EP - 154

JO - IEEE Open Journal of Power Electronics

JF - IEEE Open Journal of Power Electronics

SN - 2644-1314

ER -

Prospects and Challenges of 4H-SiC Thyristors in Protection of HB-MMC-VSC-HVDC Converters

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