PV Inverter Reliability: Industry Status, Technical Gap, and Future Needs
Organizers
Zheyu Zhang, Clemson University, zheyuz@clemson.edu
Ramanathan Thiagarajan, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Ramanathan.Thiagarajan@nrel.gov
Abstract
Motivated by the fact that field data from PV power plant operators show that power electronics converter contributes most to operation and maintenance (O&M) events, responsible for between 43% and 70% of the service calls, it is essential to initialize a conversation focusing on the PV inverter reliability with a wide range of stakeholders’ participation. This could benefit the research community to better understand the industry status, technical gap, and future needs. In this panel, the audience will hear diverse opinions shared by five distinguished panelists from PV power plant operators and PV inverter manufacturers to U.S. DOE Solar Energy Technologies Office and National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and their visions to improve PV inverter reliability in the field. This panel will include the effects of PV inverter reliability on the overall energy yield of PV Power plants from a PV plant operator. This will be followed by presentations on the effects of PV inverter design on inverter reliability by two leading PV inverter manufacturers. Following this, speakers from DOE and NREL will describe the past and current efforts on inverter reliability and standards development work performed within the DOE space.
Short Bio of Organizers
Dr. Zheyu Zhang received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China, and the Ph.D. degree from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, in 2008, 2011, and 2015, respectively, all in electrical engineering. He is the Warren H. Owen – Duke Energy Assistant Professor at Clemson University. He was a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville from 2015 to 2018. Afterward, he joined General Electric Research as the Lead Power Electronics Engineer at Niskayuna, NY, USA from 2018 to 2019. He has published over 100 papers in the most prestigious journals and conference proceedings, filed over 10 patent applications, authored one book, and presented ten IEEE tutorial seminars and webinars. His research interests include wide band-gap-based power electronics characterization, reliability, and applications for electrified transportation, renewables, and energy storage systems. Dr. Zhang is currently the Standard Vice-Chair of IEEE IAS Power Electronics Devices and Components Committee, Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics and IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications. He was the recipient of two prize paper awards from the IEEE IAS and IEEE PELS. He is a senior member of IEEE.
Mr. Ramanathan Thiagarajan received his bachelor’s degree from Anna University in 2011 in Electrical and Electronics Engineering. After three years in the role of Development Engineering at Vellore Institute of Technology in India, he pursued his Masters in Electrical Engineering from Arizona State University from 2015 to 2017. He is currently a Research Electrical Engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in the Power System Engineering Center. He has been involved with multiple DOE efforts on inverter reliability including PREDICTS (Physics of Reliability: Evaluating Design Insights for Component Technologies in Solar), PVQAT (PV Quality Assurance Task Force), Power Electronics Reliability Standards, and TRACE-PV (Tool for Reliability Assessment of Critical Electronics in PV). His research interests include PV inverter reliability, electrothermal multiscale models of inverters, humidity models for inverters, testing of PV inverters for advanced grid functionality, characterization of residential battery inverters coupled with PV, Controller Hardware-in-the-Loop (CHIL), and Power Hardware-in-the-loop (PHIL) testing of inverters. He was the recipient of the best poster award in the Photovoltaics Specialist Conference (PVSC) in 2019.
Speakers and presentations
1. Mr. Nick de Vries, SVP of Technology and Asset Management, Silicon Ranch
Importance of Inverter Reliability on Operating PV Power Plants
2. Dr. Tassos Golnas, Technology Manager, U.S. DOE Solar Energy Technologies Office
Solar Inverter Reliability: DOE-funded R&D and Future Directions
3. Mr. Daniel Clemens, Reliability Technical Manager, SMA Solar Technology
Insights into Reliable PV Inverter
4. Mr. Matt Ursino, Senior Reliability Engineering, YASKAWA Solectria
Design of Reliability for PV Inverter
5. Dr. Peter Hacke, Senior Scientist, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Evaluation of the DC Bus Link Capacitors and Power Transistor Modules for Qualification Testing of PV Inverters