A new three-year multi-partner Horizon Europe funded project, called MoWiLife (Condition Monitoring and Wide Bandgap Power Electronics – Leading Innovations for the European Energy Sector), will be working on technology for DC wind and solar energy applications.

This includes the development of a 2.3 kV SiC MOSFET with temperature sensing and self-protection features. Additionally, the project explores the potential of ultra-high voltage and ultra-wide bandgap semiconductors, including diamonds as semiconductor materials, for energy savings.

The project features two wind energy converter pilots and two university-developed pilots: a TRL 5 DC-DC converter and a TRL 5 DC circuit breaker.

The basis for the four pilots is the 2.3 kV SiC MOSFET, which will be developed by project partner Infineon. It includes a source-gate PiN diode, whose on-state voltage has a strong temperature dependence and can be read out by the gate drive, which will be developed by Rostock University. In addition, self-protection features will be integrated into the SiC chip for robustness and direct water cooling will be realised for higher output power.

The two wind energy converter pilots are being realised by two industrial partners. As one of the technology leaders in wind energy, Vestas – supported by University of Aalborg – will develop a TRL 6 SiC converter with +20 percent power density and digital-twin Condition and Health Monitoring. The start-up RKL together with Rostock University will develop a TRL 5 wind energy power stack with Condition and Health Monitoring based on online chip temperature and on-state voltage measurement.

Solar medium voltage DC collection grids and meshed high voltage transmission grids will play an important role in the future. As third and fourth pilots, a TRL 5 DC-DC converter and a TRL 5 DC circuit breaker including condition monitoring are being developed by the MoWiLife university partners KTH Stockholm and University of Aberdeen.

The Aberdeen HVDC research team, led by Dragan Jovcic and Xin Yuan. will be responsible for developing and validating a functional SiC MOSFET hybrid high voltage DC circuit breaker, which builds on previous research projects at Aberdeen related to DC circuit breakers and DC transmission grid development.

Jovcic said: “DC (direct current) electrical systems have not been much utilised since AC (alternating current) systems have been preferred with traditional overland power transmission and conventional electricity generation.

“However, AC power can only be transmitted over relatively short distances with subsea cables, and as we look increasingly to offshore wind or tidal technology to meet growing demand, solutions are needed to create high-voltage direct current (HVDC) connections and to eventually develop an HVDC grid.

“We will use desktop research and also develop 5 kV DC CB demonstrator based on SiC MOSFETs in our HVDC laboratory for experimental testing.”