Reliability analysis of power Converters for solar pv system

Abstract

Energy which is harnessed from natural resources such as wind, solar, biomass, newlinegeothermal, tides etc., is renewable energy. The state of natural resources in the newlineworld is fast declining and there would be scarcity of resources for the future newlinegenerations. The continuous supply of electrical energy is very much essential newlinein this modern world as mankind s day to day activity depends on uninterrupted newlineelectrical energy. Energy needs of the country can be addressed by solar energy. newlineAdvent of power electronics revolution has enabled the use of advanced power newlineconditioning unit to get maximum power from solar photovoltaic system. newlineExperiences in field reveals that power semiconductor devices are the most newlinecritical component in the power conditioning unit in terms of failure rate. newlinePredicting the reliability of systems will give a knowledge about whether the newlinelevel of reliability is acceptable enough for the application, when to schedule newlinethe maintenance in case of repairable system or when to replace the system with newlinea new one. When used in design stage, it will help in finding the weakness in newlinethe design and also comparison of designs is possible. Even for existing systems newlinewhen reliability is compared, the best system for a particular application can be newlineidentified. Improving the reliability of power conditioning unit is the basic newlinenecessity for the overall improvement of solar PV system. The present work defines the research in reliability of power semiconductor newlinedevices including failure mechanisms and stress in components. A comparative newlinestudy of different types of dc-dc converters used for solar PV system is done. newlineRedundancy in component level and leg level is introduced for reliability newlineimprovement. Reliability and hence life time of power conditioning units are newlineestimated by using reliability block diagram method and Markov analysis newlinemethod. The mathematical equations for Markov method are derived and the newlineresults are validated using Symbolic Hierarchical Automated Reliability and newlinePerformance Evaluator (SHARPE) tool. Internal par