22nd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference, 3-7 September 2007, Milan, Italy

NEW GENERATION OF PV INVERTERS WITH ADVANCED POWER ELECTRONICS PACKAGING CONCEPT FOR HIGHEST RELIABILITY AND MINIMUM ASSEMBLY TIME IN MASS PRODUCTION

Mike Meinhardt, Gnther Cramer, Bernd Engel, Matthias Victor SMA Technologie AG, Hannoversche Strae 1-5, 34266 Niestetal, Germany Tel.: +49 561 95 22-0, Fax: +49 561 95 22-100, e-mail: info@sma.de

ABSTRACT: For a successful future development both, technical innovations as well as economy-of-scale are necessary. In this paper Power Electronic Packaging as one important area of technical innovations for PV inverters is introduced. An advanced Power Electronic Packaging concept for PV inverters optimized for mass production and highest reliability is presented. A comparison with earlier generations of PV inverters in terms of topology, Power Electronic Packaging concept (electromechanical system integration) and resulting assembly process is shown. The impact of these advances in Power Electronic Packaging on failure rates, assembly time and specific price are presented. Compared to the inverters of the early nineties due to this new Power Electronic Packaging concept the failure rate could be cut by more than half. Furthermore the assembly times can be reduced by about 70 %. The specific costs were reduced by about 60%. The next generation of String inverters with very much improved usability is presented. This inverter series incorporates all the lessons learned from previous inverter generations. Keywords: inverter, cost reduction, lifetime

INTRODUCTION

The outstanding success of PV in the field of grid feeding would not have been impossible without the enormous advances made in PV systems technology. However, compared to electricity from fossil energy sources PV electricity generation costs are still too high. Therefore Strategy reports of European Union, IEA PVPS and other stakeholders independently underline the importance of cost reduction and improvement of reliability of PV inverters as the two main areas of interest and focus of R&D work. [1, 2] One important milestone for the development of gridconnected PV is grid parity, where PV electricity generation cost equals average electricity prices paid by end consumers. In order to achieve this goal the cost of PV Systems must be cut by about 40% within the next 5 to 10 years. PV inverters shall then cost about 0,20 /W. In terms of lifetime the PV Technology Platform targets a lifetime of more than 20 years in 2013/2020 and more than 30 years for the period 2013/2020 in the Strategic Research Agenda published in June 2007 [3].

This paper presents the Power Electronic Packaging concepts of two generations of PV inverters in the power range < 4 kW in detail. The state-of-the-art of Power Electronic Packaging of PV inverters is represented by the Sunny Boy 3800 (see Figure 1) launched in 2005. In order to point out the progress made in about 15 years of R&D specific cost, failure rate and assembly time are presented as figures of merit resulting from a comparison with PV inverters launched in 1991 and 1997. Further measures taken for both cost reduction and reliability are presented. Finally the next step of PV String inverter evolution is introduced.

2. POWER ELECTRONIC ENBLING TECHNOLOGY

PACKAGING

AN

Figure 1: Sunny Boy 3800 String inverter (launched 2005) represents the state-of-art of Power Electronic Packaging

Power Electronic Packaging (PEP) is the discipline of arranging and integrating electronic components and the electromechanical design of power electronic appliances like PV inverters. PEP covers many interdisciplinary fields of expertise like design for manufacturability and reliability, functional integration, thermal management, interconnection technologies, EMC. As known from other industries PEP is one of the dominating future areas of innovations and power electronics research. Power Electronic Packaging is the focus of R&D activities when operational behavior of PV inverters like efficiency especially in combination with extremely long lifetimes > 30 years is pushed toward physical limits. Besides manufacturing processes and selection of high quality components PEP is the main factor for improvements of PV inverter reliability. Thus, in the PV inverter industry as in other industry branches (e.g. general purpose power supply for computers and telecom applications) Power Electronic Packaging has shown as the key area of interest for future innovations. [4]

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3. STATE-OF-THE-ART OF POWER ELECTRONIC PACKAGING OF PV STRING INVERTERS About 10 years the introduction of the String technology in 2005 a new generation of String inverters with an entirely new Power Electronic Packaging concept was launched and is currently produced in more than 40.000 units/year. As shown later this new PV inverter generation shows very much improved reliability, reduced specific cost, higher efficiency and better thermal behavior. Since the topology of former inverter generation has proven as robust and advantageous the new generation (Sunny Boy 3800) was based on the classical topology with line-frequency transformer and Hbridge shown in Figure 2.

channel in for an optimum air flow for most efficient cooling. The electrical connections between rear compartment and front compartment are realized via sealed feedthroughs which are screwed directly to the back of the main Printed Circuit Board (PCB). Instead of discrete power semiconductors an integrated power module is used. In order to reduce the number of cables inside the inverter all EMI-Filter components are located on the main PCB.

Figure 2: Topology of the PV String inverters Sunny Boy 3000 (1997) and Sunny Boy 3800 (2005) 3.1 Thermal management The improved thermal management was possible due to the use of the advanced cooling concept Opti-Cool. Figure 4 illustrates a schematic of this innovative cooling concept, which combines forced cooling and convection [5]. The main principle of the cooling concept is the division into two separated compartments. The front compartment houses (Fig 3b) all sensible electronics and is hermetically sealed for installation in outdoor applications. Dissipative components are placed in the vented rear compartment. Figure 4: Power Electronic Packaging concept of stateof-the-art PV inverter Sunny Boy 3800

4. POWER ELECTRONIC PACKAGING CONCEPT OF EARLY STRING INVERTERS (1997) Figure 5 shows a Sting inverter Sunny Boy 3000 as introduced in the mid-nineties. This inverter with a maximum power of 3000 W uses also the topology with line-frequency transformer depicted in Figure 2.

Figure 3:Opti-Cool cooling concept for PV inverters Figure 5: String inverter Sunny Boy 3000 (1997) 3.2. Functional integration of inverter components Figure 4 shows an exploded drawing which illustrates the Power Electronic Packaging concept of this generation of String inverters. In comparison to the predecessor generation the housing is made of an aluminum die-cast structure, where heat sink and grip and many other functions have been integrated. As described above the rear compartment is completely separated from the front compartment. Transformer, inductors and AC-filter-capacitors are released in an integrated structure. The integrated ACFilter/ Transformer as the most dissipative component of the inverter is mounted in the rear compartment (see Figure 3a). One part of the plastic die-cast housing of the integrated AC-filter-transformer is formed as an air

Figure 6: Rear part of 1997 generation of String inverter

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Figure 6 and 7 show the Power Electronics Packaging concept of the first generation of String inverters represented by the Sunny Boy 3000 as manufactured in 1997. As shown in Figure 6 the concept uses a welded pot-type housing of stainless steel, where the Aluminum heat sink is attached with screws. Transformer, inductor as well as EMI-filter where realized as discrete components. Electrical connections between components are realized using spring type connections in the rear part of the housing. This leads to a high number of cable-terminal connection, which is regarded as one of the main failure causes.

5. PV INVERTER ACHIEVEMENTS The investigation is based on the comparison of three particular PV inverter models PV-WR 1500 (1991), Sunny Boy 3000 (1997), Sunny Boy 3800 (2005). 5.1. Specific price of PV inverters The specific price of PV inverter has been reduced enormously since the beginning of the 1990s. Figure 8 shows a cost reduction of about 60% for the period 1991 - 2005. Today 3 kW String inverters are available at 0,47 /WAC whereas 0.7 kW inverters costs about 1.1 /WAC. The current best price for single-phase Mini Central PV inverters is about 0,37 /WAC for a 8 kW unit. Large Central PV inverters (not shown in Figure 9) in the range of 500 kW are sold at about 0.25 /WAC.[6]. 5.2 PV inverter reliability Although statistically firm and publicly available figures on failure rates of PV inverters are hard to gather one can state the reliability of PV inverters in general has made enormous progress in recent years. The comparison of the failure rate within the first 2 years of operation of three particular PV inverters models PV-WR 1500 (1991), Sunny Boy 3000 (1997), Sunny Boy 3800 (2005) in shown Figure 8 . One can see that the failure has been reduced by a factor of 5 comparing inverters build in 1991 and 2005. IEA PVPS Task2 investigations show an improvement of Performance Ratio (PR) of PV systems installed in the early nineties (PR=0,64) to system installed in the late nineties (PR=0,74) by about 15%. This improvement is mainly accredited to improved inverter reliability and efficiency as well as reduced down-times of the systems [7]. State-of-the-art PV-Systems installed in 2005 and later reach Performance Ratios of 0,85. According to an investigation made in Switzerland [8] the number of PV inverter defects per year observed

Figure 7: Front part of 1997 generation of String inverter As shown in Figure 7 the rear and the front part are separated via a metal plate which has about 5 10 mm slots at three edges for improve ventilation and cooling of rear components. However, no forced cooling is applied, in order to gain a high protection class IP65 for protection of all electronic components. The cable connections between the rear part components and the central Printed Circuit Board (PCB) where realized via plug-and-socket connections. Discrete Semiconductor devices clipped to an aluminum heat transfer block are used.

Figure 8: Figures-of-Merit of PV inverter development 1991 - 2008

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in 2005 were only of the defects in 1991. 5.3 Efficiency of PV inverters A high PV inverter efficiency is very important for a good energy yield of a PV system and therefore for the cost of generated PV electricity. Therefore inverter efficiency was always one of the top priorities in PV inverter R&D. As shown in Figure 7 the efficiency has improved very much up to 96% in 2005 and reach today a maximum of 98 % (world record: Sunny Boy 8000 TL) [9]. 5.4. Features of PV inverters The number of features of inverters has risen rapidly in order to serve costumer needs as shown in section 8 of the present paper. For example offer inverters very powerful means of communication like automatic crosslinking Bluetooth for optimal plant monitoring.

2010 (forecast). In the particular case the quantities of SB3800 (2005) are about 50 time higher compared to the PV-WR 1500 (1991). 6.2 Increase of nominal power of PV inverter In recent years a trend towards PV inverters with higher nominal power could be observed. As a matter of fact PV inverters with higher nominal power show lower specific price. The wide band of PV inverter cost shown in Figure 9 results from the power dependency of specific inverter cost (see section 5.1). 6.3 R&D-focus: Cost reduction With a larger number of inverters sold and the resulting higher turnover manufacturers of PV inverters get the possibility to invest into additional development to adjust the inverters to the requirements of mass production (design for manufacturability). At the same time they can intensify working for the continuing targets of reliability, efficiency, EMC and lifespan of the inverter. 6.4 Reduced number of components Reduction of number of components is an obvious measure to influence the PV inverter cost already in the design phase. Generally speaking, less components lead to lower material cost and lower labor cost. However a compromise has to be made between cost reduction needs and technical requirements (e.g. components necessary for the improvement of PV inverter efficiency). This goal can either be reached by omitting components due to smart circuit design or by using integrated components. 6.5 (Functional) integration of discrete components to subassemblies Due to the use of integrated components and other PEP measures the assembly times has been cut by about 80% compared to inverters of the early nineties. Examples of higher integration level in the Sunny Boy 3800 that save substantially assembly time are: a) Integrated power semiconductor modules fixed with only one screw to the integrated heat sink (2005) instead of discrete semiconductors clipped to an extruded aluminum heat sink screwed mounted to the stainless steel housing (1997). b) Integrated aluminum die-cast housing with integrated heat sink, recessed grips and fixtures for fan (2005) instead of welded stainless steel housing with an attached heat-sink (1997) described in section 4.

6. MEASURES FOR COST REDUCTION OF PV INVERTERS Effective cost reduction can not be granted to only one measure but is always a combination of several factors [10]. Measures for cost reduction already taken in the PV inverter design phase (e.g. advanced Power Electronic Packaging) show in general good results during manufacturing, in the sales chain and during operation in the field. In the following the measures of cost reduction by means of Power Electronic Packaging are derived from the comparison of the three particular PV inverter models PV-WR 1500 (1991), Sunny Boy 3000 (1997), Sunny Boy 3800 (2005).

Figure 9: Development of specific price and annual quantity from 1990 to 2010F 6.1 Economy of scale For a successful future development of PV both, technical innovations as well as economy-of-scale are necessary. So the positive development depicted in Figure 9 has to be granted to the rising quantities on one hand and the enabling technologies partly described in the present paper on the other. Innovative technologies (e.g. advanced Power Electronic Packaging) are necessary as an enabler in order to achieve an optimum benefit from the rising quantities. In Figure 9 the development of specific cost and quantities from 1990 to

7 MEASURES FOR IMPROVEMENT RELIABILITY OF PV INVERTERS

OF

Most of the measures mentioned in section 6 have an positive impact on inverter reliability and cost at the same time. 7.1 (Functional) integration of discrete components to subassemblies The number of discrete components is a measure for the level of functional integration applied in an inverter.

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The most effective method for improvement of reliability is the use of components with a higher level of integration. Using e.g. integrated magnetic components and customized power semiconductor modules leads to reduced number subassemblies, components and interconnections. 7.2 Minimum number of cables inside the inverter Cable connections are one of the most unreliable parts of an inverter. Thus integrating components on the printed circuit board and consequently the omitting cables leads to an improved failure rate. Comparing Sunny Boy 3800 (2005) and Sunny Boy 3000 (19917) shows that by placing the EMI filter components on the printed circuit board the number of cables inside the inverter can be reduced and failure rate can be improved by a factor of about 3 in this particular case. 7.3 Advanced cooling concept Due to the advanced thermal management concept Opti-Cool described above the temperature stress of the inverter components has been reduced significantly. Reduced temperature stress results in lower failure rates. 7.4 Reduction of PV inverter complexity The higher the complexity of an electric circuit the higher the number of interconnections (e.g. cables) and the higher the inverter failure rate. Comparing the topologies of the Sunny Boy 3800 (see Figure 2) and PVWR 1500 (see Figure 10) this difference in complexity is apparent.

monitoring purposes at low cost. International compatibility and easy configurability leads to cost reduction due to simplified logistics and minimized stock-keeping in whole sales chain. Easy and cost effective installation is supported by reduced specific weight, spring-type terminals for quick cabling and mounting the inverter on DIN-Rails or standard wall brackets. Antitheft feature will help to cut the cost for insurance of PV-plant. Optimum energy and financial yields are achieved due to an inverter efficiency (97%) and best MPP tracking efficiency (OptiTrac).

Figure 11: New Generation of Sunny Boy inverter (2008)

9. CONCLUSIONS AND OUTLOOK Figure 10: Topology of PV-WR 1500 as manufactured in 1991. Power Electronic Packaging as one important area of technical innovations for PV inverters has been presented. It has proven that the use of an advanced Power Electronic Packaging concept for PV inverters leads to improved reliability, assembly time and cost at the same time. The Sunny Boy 3800 represents the stateof-art in term of Power Electronic Packaging of String inverters. Compared to the inverters of the early nineties due to this new Power Electronic Packaging concept the failure rate has been improved by a factor of 5. Furthermore the assembly times is reduced by about 80 %. The specific costs were reduced by about 60%. At the same time the number of features of PV inverters has risen to serve costumer needs. Optimum usability is one key requirement. So state-of-the-art PV inverters are internationally compatible and offer very powerful means of communication for optimal plant monitoring like Bluetooth. However, further cost reduction and improvement of reliability are (still) the main challenges for R&D and are necessary. For a successful future development of Photovoltaics both, technical innovations as well as economy-of-scale are necessary. Innovative technologies (e.g. advanced Power Electronic Packaging) are necessary as an enabler in order to take all chances by the rising quantities.

8. NEW GENERATIONS OF PV INVERTERS (2008) New generations of Sunny Boy and Sunny Mini Central inverters will be available from January 2008. They are designed to continue to positive development in respect to cost, reliability, efficiency and features. (see Figure 8) This will be achieved by consequently incorporating lessons learned from earlier PV inverter generations described in the present paper. The Power Electronics Packaging concept of the new generation of inverters incorporates the main aspects like integrated components (e.g. die-cast housing) and advanced thermal management (i.e. Opti-Cool). For the new Sunny Boy and Sunny Mini Central 11000 inverter the main targets of R&D beside the reduction of specific inverter cost were to improve the usability and consequently secondary cost e.g. due to planning, installation, monitoring or poor availability of PV-plants. In particular: Bluetooth communication with automatic cross-linking capability for long range

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11 REFERENCES [1] Jahn, U, et. Al. : Performance of grid-connected PV Systems: Overview of PVPS Task2 Results 20th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition, 6-10 June 2005, Barcelona, Spain. [2] A Vision for photovoltaic technology: Report EUR 21242 by Photovoltaic Technology Research Advisory Council (PV-TRAC), published by Directorate-General Research Sustainable Energy Systems, European Commission, 2005, Brussels, Belgium [3] A strategic research agenda photovoltaic vision for photovoltaic solar energy technology by The European Technology Platform, European Commission, June 2007, Brussels, Belgium [4] Cheasty, P.; et. Al.: Benchmark of Power Electronic Packaging for DC/DC and AC/DC converters, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, Volume 17, Issue 1, Jan. 2002, pp 141 - 150 [5] Cramer. G., et. Al: String Technology - A Successful Standard of the PV System Technology for 10 Years now, 20th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference, 6 - 10 June 2005, Barcelona, Spain [6] de Wild-Scholten, M. J. et. al, A cost and environmental comparison of grid-connected rooftop and ground-based PV systems, 21st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference, 4-8 September 2006, Dresden, Germany [7] Jahn, U.: Photovoltaik-Anlagen Bewhrung und Herausforderung, FVS-Themen 2003, pp. 28 - 35, Jahrestagung des Forschungsverbund Solarenergie, 25 - 26 September 2003, Berlin, Germany [8] Photovoltaik Programm 2006, berblicksbericht 2005, Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft, Bundesamt fr Energie, Switzerland, April 2006 [9] Meinhardt, M.: Improvement of Photovoltaic Inverter Efficiency Targets, Methods, Limits, PCIM Conference May 31 - June 1 2006, Nuremberg, Germany [10] Meinhardt, M., Cramer, G.: Cost reduction of PV inverters Targets Pathways and limits, 17th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference, 22 26 October 2001, Munich, Germany

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