Faults and diagnosis systems in power converters

Abstract

A power converter is needed in almost all kinds of renewable energy systems and drive systems. It is used both for controlling the renewable source and for interfacing with the load, which can be grid-connected or working in standalone mode. Further, it drives the motors efficiently. Increasing efforts have been put into making these systems better in terms of reliability in order to achieve high power source availability, reduce the cost of energy and also increase the reliability of overall systems. Among the components used in power converters, a power device and a capacitor fault occurs most frequently. Therefore, it is important to monitor the power device and capacitor fault to increase the reliability of power electronics. In this chapter, the diagnosis methods for power device fault will be discussed by dividing into open- And short-circuit faults. Then, the condition monitoring methods of DC-link electrolytic capacitor will be introduced. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.