Impact of Mission Profile on Reliability of Grid-Connected Photovoltaic Inverter

Abstract

In recent decades intense demand for energy increases the utilization of Photovoltaic (PV) energy as an alternative to fossil fuels. Today’s PV energy shares a significant electricity demand with the advancements in power electronic technologies. Nevertheless, reliability performance of PV system is a major concern. Environmental conditions like mission profile (Solar Irradiance; Ambient Temperature), installation location impacts the performance of PV system. Researchers reported PV inverter as the critical component of PV system. Furthermore, reliability assessment of PV inverter considering environmental conditions is needed for the reliable operation. Therefore, the aim of this paper is evaluating the impact of mission profile on reliability (lifetime) of PV. To accomplish this, a 3-kW single phase grid connected PV system with full bridge PV inverter is considered as test case and modelled in PLECS. A 600V/30A IGBT from leading manufacturer is considered as power electronic switch in PV inverter. Top ten countries of PV market are identified and selected as installation locations, real time mission profile for one year at each installation location is considered. With this mission profile reliability assessment of PV inverter is carried out on test case. The results reveal that mission profile have considerable impact on reliability performance of PV inverter.