An Open Circuit Fault Diagnostic Technique in IGBTs for AC to DC Converters Applied in Microgrid Applications

An open circuit fault diagnostic method in IGBTs for the ac to dc converters used in microgrid applications is developed in this paper. An ac to dc converter is a key technology for microgrids in order to interface both distributed generation (DC) and renewable energy resources (RES). Also, highly reliable ac to dc converters are necessary to keep converters in continuous operation as long as possible during power switch fault conditions. Therefore, the proposed fault diagnostic method is developed to reduce the fault detection time and to avoid any other fault alarms because continuous operation is desired. The proposed diagnostic method is a combination of the absolute normalized dc current technique and the false alarm suppression algorithm to overcome the long fault detection time and fault alarm problems. The simulation and experimental results show that the developed fault diagnostic method can perform fault detection within about one cycle. The results illustrate that the reliability of an ac to de converter interfaced with a microgrid can be improved by using the proposed fault diagnostic method.