Power Electronics for Wind Turbines
Our solutions for wind energy
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Power Electronics for Wind Turbines
SEMIKRON’s portfolio includes a wide range of products for wind energy applications, from small to medium power modules for pitch and yaw drives to high power components for multi-megawatt power converters. From individual modules including dedicated drivers to high power SKiiP 4 IPMs and ready-to-use power electronic stacks – SEMIKRON has the solution.
Reliable spare parts are becoming increasingly important to ensure continuous energy harvesting until the end of the turbine life. SEMIKRON has a broad portfolio of products to ensure reliable operation and maintenance for wind turbine converters.
SEMIKRON products offer maximum reliability for on- and offshore wind turbines both in industry standard packages and in high power SKiiP 4 IPMs and power electronic stacks.
Performance Range
- YAW & PITCH DRIVES5kW - 100kW
- Compact designs and high power density
- High peak overload capabilities
- Multiple axis in one drive or modular drives with common DC bus
- Highest reliability and lifetime
- MAIN CONVERTER1MW - 15MW
- Compact designs and high power density
- High reliability in harsh environments up to 1500VDC and 1000VAC
- SPARE PARTS & SERVICE1MW - 15MW
- SEMIKRON advanced power modules for maximum reliability and efficiency
- Customized stacks for dedicated wind turbine converters
- SKiiP IPMs on customized heatsinks for optimum integration into existing wind turbines
Operation & Maintenance
Wind Turbine O&M
Today, over 400,000 wind turbines are in operation in the field worldwide. The demand for reliable spare parts to ensure continuous energy harvesting until the end of the turbine life is becoming increasingly important. SEMIKRON has a broad portfolio of products to ensure reliable operation and maintenance for wind turbine converters. From individual power modules, IPMs and drivers to dedicated, customized retrofit stacks – SEMIKRON has the right solution!
Benefits
SEMIKRON offers a broad portfolio with industry standard power modules such as the SEMITRANS and SEMiX family. It includes SKiiP IPMs, also with customized coolers to fit into your wind turbine converter. The range is rounded off with highly reliable stacks, for example, based on solder-free SKiM 93 modules featuring sintered chips. This technology allows for optimised thermal conductivity from chip to heatsink and runs the chip at about 20°C lower than the OEM stack. SEMIKRON also offers newly designed driver boards based on the latest SEMIKRON ASIC technology with digital signal transmission and additional protection functions.
Key Features
- Broad portfolio of industry standard modules
- SEMIKRON advanced power modules for maximum reliability and efficiency
- Customized stacks for dedicated wind turbine converters
- Customized heatsinks for IPMs (SKiiP) for integration into existing converter designs
- Drivers and adapter boards with highly reliable SEMIKRON ASIC technology
More about Wind Turbine Operation & Maintenance
New Benchmark Generation 7 IGBT
Pushing Performance in 3-Level Topologies
Whenever power quality and efficiency are driving factors in power electronics applications, 3-level topologies are the key. This is especially true for renewable energy applications where the combination with the latest Generation 7 IGBTs sets new benchmarks.
SEMITRANS 10 MLI enables wind turbine converters to reach voltage ranges up to 1000VAC (1500VDC) in 3-level NPC topology and increases converter efficiency.
For ANPC topologies, SEMIKRON’s new SEMITRANS 20 power module combines lowest stray inductance, highest power density and latest Generation 7 IGBTs to set a new benchmark. Its design based on standard half-bridge topology allows an easy ANPC setup and a low inductance DC-link connection.
Key Features
- Reduced system cost thanks to 3-level topology
- Up to 1.5MW without paralleling
- Lower switching losses thanks to 1200V IGBT
- Generation 7 IGBTs
- Lower THD means lower filter requirements
- Reduced cable diameters or cable losses
- Reduced cooling requirements
Intelligent Power Modules – IPMs
For Maximum Reliability
The SKiiP IPM product line sets a benchmark for high performance and robust inverter designs. Both SKiiP 3 and SKiiP 4 feature high power densities combined with flexible cooling options such as air or water cooling, also with customized heatsinks. Reliable driver technology, integrated current sensors and comprehensive protection functions complete the IPM design.
The IPMs of SKiiP 3 platform have propagated widely through the industrial drive segment. With sixpack or half-bridge topologies, it covers a IGBT nominal current range from 500A up to 2400A.
The SKiiP 4 platform products, available in half-bridge topology, cover the highe power range up to 3600A IGBT nominal current. It has been optimized for highest power cycling requirements.
To ensure highest reliability and service life, the SKiiP 4 power circuitry is 100% solder-free. Sinter technology as die attach replaces the solder layers between semiconductor chips and DCB, which usually causes the limitation in lifetime. Hence, sintering improves power and thermal cycling capability.
The integrated gate driver in the SKiiP 4 has set new standards in terms of reliability and enhanced functionality through its CAN interface. The digital driver guarantees safe isolation between the primary and secondary side for both switching signals and parameter measurement. The CAN interface allows setting the SKiiP 4 configuration parameter and reading application parameter.
High performance cooling (HPC) technology has been new introduced providing approximately 25% more output capability compared to standard water cooling. A double side mounting HPC water cooler is also available and enables an even higher power density.
Key Features
- 1200V and 1700V IGBTs
- Half-bridge and sixpack topology
- 500A to 3600A IGBT nominal current
- Flexible cooling options: air, water or customized cooling options, SKiiP 4 high performance water cooling for single and double-sided SKiiP mounting
- Paralleled operation for even higher output power possible
Power Electronic Stack Platforms
Fully Qualified Inverter Assemblies Tailored to Your Specific Needs
Standard Stacks
SEMIKRON’s Power Electronic Stacks enable our customers to succeed in dynamic markets and meet any global challenge. We deliver diode-, thyristor-, IGBT- and SiC-MOSFET-based stacks for AC voltages from 380V to 1000V. Our standard stacks cover an output current range from 70A to 1400A. Our new SEMIKUBE MLI Stacks bring all benefits of 3-level NPC topology in an off-the-shelf product. The integrated safety and sensing fuctions are advantageous for your fast time-to-market.
- Water Cooled IGBT Stacks
SEMISTACK RE
SKiiPRACK
SEMIKUBE MLI
Customised Stacks
In addition to standard stacks, SEMIKRON has vast experience in developing customer-specific solutions. Engineers are available in our stack centres around the globe to offer such solutions by adapting existing platforms or designing customized stacks.
Four Key Factors for your success
- Shortest time to market
- Cost savings in R&D, production and qualification
- Global SEMIKRON stack production footprint
- Highly experienced engineering team
Thermal Interface Materials (TIM)
Stay Cool – Heat Dissipation is Our Job
SEMIKRON was the first power module manufacturer on the market to offer power modules with pre-applied thermal interface material in thermal paste form. With more than two decades of field experience and more than 17 million pre-printed modules in the field, benchmarks are being set. The modules with pre-applied TIM are printed in a clean environment on an automated and SPC controlled silkscreen and stencil printing line.
For each requirement, SEMIKRON offers the right choice of material. In addition to the standard silicone thermal grease, phase change materials and high performance thermal paste with improved thermal performance are also available.
SEMIKRON offers either thermal grease or phase change materials depending on customer requirements (e.g. performance increase, reduced handling effort) and module type (with or without baseplate). Phase change materials have a solid consistency at room temperature, fully exploiting the advantages a non-smearing TIM layer offers, with no drawbacks. Baseplate-less modules, on the other hand, usually require a lower-viscosity material to help improve robustness during assembly. Here, thermal grease is the preferred solution.
Key Features
- Increased productivity thanks to reduced handling costs and improved logistics
- Low thermal resistance with optimized TIM layer thickness
- Improved lifetime and reliability
- Improved assembly robustness
- Modules can be shipped directly to the assembly line without any additional treatment processes
- Lower overall costs
Portfolio
- P8: Phase Change Material for highest performance
- HT: Phase Change Material for highest sink temperature
- HPTP: High Performance Thermal Paste
- P12: Standard Thermal Paste
