Reliability and economic feasibility analysis of parallel unity power factor rectifier for wind turbine system

High power rated modern wind generators are demanding immaculate performance and greater reliability from the power electronics interface. In order to keep up to the challenges, advanced multilevel front-end rectifiers and parallel operation of rectifiers are researched. A higher number of semiconductor switches make reliability estimation and feasibility of converters a factor of industrial interrogation. This study focuses on the operation, reliability, and economic feasibility analysis of a parallel unity power factor rectifier (PUPFR). Each branch of the PUPFR has a three-phase diode rectifier and each phase of which is equipped with bidirectional switching blocks. Suitability of uninterrupted operation with lower down-time for instances of one branch failure, the system discussed provides higher feasibility, reliability, and options of modularity. The reliability is assessed by quantifying the failure rate of each component of the converter topology. The feasibility analysis of the PUPFR focuses on quantitative evaluation based on component pricing for initial cost, maintenance, power-loss calculation, operational cost, and capacity factor. The PUPFR is comparatively assessed with respect to its single branch topology, i.e. the unity power factor rectifier. Both the topologies are simulated in MATLAB®/Simulink and the system is experimentally validated on a 1 kW hardware setup.