Wind & Marine Energy Systems & StructuresAcademic Partners
Marlee Basurto Macavilca
PhD Title - Application of Wide-Bang Gap power semiconductors in wind energy power converters.
Currently the most-adopted wind power converters topology by wind turbine manufactures is a two-level Pulsewidth-modulation (PWM) converter based on insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBT) as switching devices. As Wind power turbine capacity increases, the current through the semiconductors increases proportionally. This implies to scale the whole converter augmenting its size/weight. The number of semiconductors in parallel, power efficiency and reliability tends to be more relevant. SiC MOSFETs offer lower switching losses and higher voltage blocking capabilities than Si IGBT. This PhD project aims to investigate potential converter topologies using SiC MOSFETS in MW scale wind turbines.
Email - marlee.basurto@ed.ac.uk
Start Date - October 2017
Institution - University of Edinburgh
Degree - MSc Industrial Engineering specialising in power electronics
Additional Information - Experience in power electronics in the railway sector