Power electronic losses of a customer-end inverter in low-voltage direct current distribution

Abstract

A low-voltage direct current (LVDC) distribution system comprises a rectifier, a DC network, and customer-end inverters (CEI) responsible for the AC supply to the electricity end-users. The CEIs can be implemented as single-phase or three-phase ones; in this paper, feasible single- and three-phase topologies are introduced and their losses are calculated using nine different power switches. Three commercially available IGBT, MOSFET, and SiC MOSFET power switches are selected for comparison. In this application, a galvanic isolation between the DC network and the customer is required. The isolation is implemented by using an isolating DC/DC converter at the CEI supply, and therefore, the input voltage of the CEI can be different from the DC network voltage. In this paper, the effect of the supply voltage level on the losses of the CEI is calculated for the nine power transistors in single- and three-phase topologies.