System Benefits for Solar Inverters using SiC Semiconductor Modules

In today's and future's electrical power grid system, regenerative energy sources like photovoltaic (PV) power systems consisting of PV panels and grid-connected inverters are very popular in domestic as well as in commercial power plants. High competitive pressure among PV power system providers due to cut inverter's costs can be observed. Therefore different technical approaches have to be evaluated in overall power inverter system cost to get cost-optimized solutions. In this paper technical and system cost benefits in a grid-connected, transformerless multi-string PV inverter box by replacing its standard silicon (Si) IGBT modules with fast switching silicon carbide (SiC) device modules will be shown and discussed.