Development of INGECON® WIND MV power Converter for FC – topology wind turbines up to 15 MW

This paper presents the main aspects of the design procedure followed by Ingeteam to develop the INGECON® WIND MV Power Converter for FC Wind Turbines up to 15 MW.
Within the design phase, the core components of the power converter, such as the Power Electronic Modules (semiconductors, drivers, capacitors, busbars, etc…), are developed in close collaboration with the leading manufacturers, taking into account the application requirements.
The components are in-house tested and validated using dedicated test benches in order to acquire detailed know-how and fully characterize them to stablish the operation limits of each component. For the whole converter system, both software in the loop (SiL) and hardware in the loop (HiL) simulations are used in order to build an optimized solution.
Besides, RAMS metrics of the system (MTBF, MTTR) are also evaluated within early stages of the procedure. Within the validation phase of the power converter, thermal tests at both partial and full load are performed, as well as application tests such as FRT test (virtual grid) and combined test with generator. Again, SiL and HiL validation of correlated models is performed in order to ensure that the converter fulfills all the requirements, drastically minimizing the on-site validation and certification phase.