High temperature failure of photovoltaic power station inverter

Why do PV inverters fail?

Some authors discuss inverter failures due to the issues of reactive power control. The PV inverters operate at unity power factor, but as per the new grid requirements, the PV inverters must operate at non unity power factor by absorbing or supplying reactive power to control the grid voltage and frequency.

Which inverter failure rate is highest for PV power plants?

Heatsink temperature comparing for two 0.4 kW inverters at cases of (PF = 1 and PF = 0.8) . Some authors discussed that the inverter failures rate is the highest for different scales of PV power plants (Small, Medium, and Mega scales for commercial and residential utility).

Does central inverter failure affect PV power plant availability & Roi?

This paper reviewed several publications which studied the failures of the PV power plant equipment’s and presented that the central inverter failures rate is the highest for the PV power plant equipment’s which affected negatively in both PV power plant availability and ROI.

What is the failure rate of a PV power plant?

The general PV system consists of subsystems that decompose to subassemblies as shown in Fig. 4 . The central inverters failure rate is the highest for the PV power plant components. It is estimated that 52% to 60% of the total failures rates of overall equipment of the PV power plant as shown in Fig. 5 . Fig. 4.

What is failure causes analysis of grid-connected inverters?

The central inverter is considered the most important core equipment in the Mega-scale PV power plant which suffers from several partial and total failures. This paper introduces a new methodology for Failure Causes Analysis (FCA) of grid-connected inverters based on the Faults Signatures Analysis (FSA).

Which model is not included in a PV inverter model?

The average models developed for the PV inverter do not include the loss models of the power semiconductors, which help us estimate the junction temperatures . The power conductor ∆T T