Estimation of the power electronics lifetime for a wind turbine

A comparison has been made of the converter lifetime for a 3MW horizontal axis wind turbine for different wind turbulence levels. Torque and speed of the turbine shaft were used to calculate voltage and current time series that those were used to calculate the junction temperatures of diode and IGBT in the generator-side converter by a thermal-electrical model. A rainflow counting algorithm of the junction temperature in combination with an empirical model of the lifetime estimation has been used to calculate the lifetime of the power electronic module in the turbine. The number of parallel converters for each wind condition to achieve 20 years life time also has been found. it is found greater turbulence levels will lead to less lifetime of the converter in the wind turbine.

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