Power Electronic Stages for a TFPMSM in Wave Power Applications

Abstract: Direct drive wave energy conversion systems have been identified as a potentially major contributor to the world’s energy demands, forecasting shares of up to 25 % of the energy mix. Anders Hagnestål conducts research at the Royal Institute of Technology where a novel linear transverse flux permanent magnet generator is developed. This concept machine is particularly well-suited for the pertaining operating conditions in marine environments, producing large forces at low speeds with outstandingly low resistive losses. However, it exhibits severe magnetic saturation and draws unsymmetrical phase currents at nominal operation. In addition, it possesses a low power factor. All in all, this places stern requirements on the power electronic system and control algorithms. The aim of this thesis has been to design a functioning power conditioning system that connects the machine to the electric grid. For this purpose, a three-phase two-level voltage source converter is proposed to be back-to-back connected with two-level single-phase voltage source converters (active rectifiers) interfacing each and every machine phase. It is shown that the intermediate DC link can be maintained at a constant voltage with restricted ripple while feeding power at unity power factor to the grid by appropriately sizing the DC capacitor and adopting a feedback linearization control scheme. The phase currents can be controlled effectively by means of a cascaded gain-scheduled PID controller. By including a low-pass filter the iron losses in the machine may be suppressed even at lower switching frequencies. A constrained cost optimization indicates that the converter consequently can reach 99.1 % efficiency. Finally, with this thesis as a background, it is suggested that the thermal stresses on the selected semiconductor modules and the iron losses of the machine are evaluated to further improve the design. If higher efficiency of the active rectifiers is strived for, more complex converter topologies could be considered.