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Reliability analysis of grid connected small

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Article in Applied Energy September 2009
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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Reliability analysis of grid connected small wind turbine power electronics

Md. Arifujjaman *, M.T. Iqbal, J.E. Quaicoe
Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. Johns, NL, Canada A1B3X5

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 30 June 2008
Received in revised form 13 November 2008
Accepted 10 January 2009
Available online xxxx
Keywords:
Renewable energy
Wind energy
Power electronics
Grid-tie inverter
Permanent magnet generator
Small wind turbines
Switching losses
Reliability
Mean time between failures

a b s t r a c t
Grid connection of small permanent magnet generator (PMG) based wind turbines requires a power conditioning system comprising a bridge rectier, a dcdc converter and a grid-tie inverter. This work presents a reliability analysis and an identication of the least reliable component of the power conditioning
system of such grid connection arrangements. Reliability of the conguration is analyzed for the worst
case scenario of maximum conversion losses at a particular wind speed. The analysis reveals that the reliability of the power conditioning system of such PMG based wind turbines is fairly low and it reduces to
84% of initial value within one year. The investigation is further enhanced by identifying the least reliable
component within the power conditioning system and found that the inverter has the dominant effect on
the system reliability, while the dcdc converter has the least signicant effect. The reliability analysis
demonstrates that a permanent magnet generator based wind energy conversion system is not the best
option from the point of view of power conditioning system reliability. The analysis also reveals that new
research is required to determine a robust power electronics conguration for small wind turbine conversion systems.
2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Small wind energy conversion systems (WECSs) have evolved
rapidly along with the large WECS for generation of electricity in
either on-grid or off-grid applications. WECS are considered as
complex systems comprising mechanical subsystems (rotor, hub,
and gearbox) and electrical subsystems (converter/inverter, rectier, and control) and loads. Failures in any of the subsystems can
cause substantial nancial loss. The problem becomes more severe
if the system is off-grid leading to unavailability of power. In light
of this, there is a need for reliability evaluation of small WECS in
order to determine a conguration that is efcient and reliable.
Almost all commercially available small wind turbines are
based on PMGs. The power conditioning systems (PCSs) for grid
connection of the PMG based conguration requires a rectier,
boost converter, and a grid-tie inverter. The reliability analysis of
such PCS is greatly inuenced by the operating conditions, i.e.,
covariates and therefore it is desirable to investigate the magnitude of their effects on the system reliability. Reliability calculation
consider the voltage or current as a covariate for an electromechanical system [1], while the reliability of power electronic components is strongly inuenced by the component temperature and
variations [2]. Knowledge of the reliability of power electronic
components is a key concern when differentiating between topol* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 709 749 2357.
E-mail address: mda04@mun.ca (Md. Arifujjaman).

ogies. However, recent research intermittently endeavors to determine the reliability and advancement of the inverter rather than
the PCS [24]. Most of the reliability calculations are based on
the accessible data provided by the military handbook for reliability prediction of electronic equipment which is criticized for being
obsolete and pessimistic [5,6]. A comparative reliability analysis of
different converter systems has been carried out based on the military handbook by Aten et al. [6]; however, the absence of environmental and current stress factors can pose grim constraints on the
calculated reliability value. Rohouma et al. [7] provided a reliability
calculation for an entire PV unit which can be considered more
useful, but the approach lacks valid justication as the data provided by the author is taken from the manufacturers published
data which is somewhat questionable. Indeed, accurate reliability
data of the rectier, converter, or inverter are helpful to determine
the total PCS reliability; however, the calculated reliability could
be uncertain once approaching to reliability calculation using
purely statistical methods [8], from the manufacturers provided
data [3,7] or using the military handbook data [9], which consider
rectier, converter and inverter as a total system and neglect their
operating point that could vary from one user to other. Moreover,
the total number of components could vary for a same system in
order to meet a certain criteria of the overall system.
Although higher components in the PCS will exhibit less reliability and vice versa, but the effects of the covariates could be different and consequently leading to a variation in the reliability
[10]. Furthermore, a need of the reliability evaluation for the PCS

0306-2619/$ - see front matter 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2009.01.009

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Nomenclature
d
furling angle
h
angle between the grid voltage and current
base failure rate
kB
thermal resistance from junction to ambient
RJA
d
duty cycle of the boost converter
ESR ; EON ; EOFF rated switching, on state and off state loss energy,
respectively
fWT ; fSW frequency of the wind turbine rotor and switching frequency, respectively
Id ; Io ; Iom diode current, grid current, and maximum amplitude of
the grid current, respectively

of a grid connected small wind turbine is essential in order to optimize the system performances as well as system cost [11]. On the
strength of the above analysis, this paper presents a component level reliability calculation by considering temperature as a covariate
as usually used in highly accelerated lifetime testing (HALT) procedure [12] to achieve a substantial gain on the reliability prediction
of a PCS. A change in operating point is also investigated, thus a
clear understanding of the reliability of the system is accomplished. The mean time between failures of the PCS is quantied,
which can be considered the most widely used parameter in reliability studies [5]. The least reliable component of the PCS is also
identied in order to optimize the design consideration of the
power electronic interface of a grid connected small wind turbine
prior to installation.
The paper is organized as follows: The PCS required for the grid
connection of a PMG based small wind turbine (SWT) is described
in Section 2. This is followed by the identication of the most frequent failure subassembly of a SWT from published data in Section
3. Section 4 presents the mathematical analysis for conversion
losses calculations followed by the reliability analysis of the power
electronics. Finally, the results of the study are described in Section
5, and the important nding of the investigation is highlighted in
the conclusions.
2. Grid connection of small wind turbine
The power electronics for grid connection of small wind turbines
(SWTs) has changed over the years from converters based on SCRs

Iref ;d ; Idc1
M
rd ; r ce
TA; TJ

reference and actual commutation current, respectively

modulation index of the inverter
on state resistance of the diode and IGBT, respectively
ambient and junction temperature for the semiconductor device
V f 0 ; V ce0 diode and IGBT on state voltage drops, respectively
V ref ;d ; V ref ;IGBT reference commutation voltage of the diode and
IGBT, respectively
V dc1 ; V dc2 actual commutation voltage of the rectier, boost converter, and inverter, respectively

to optimized ACDCAC link. This change has led to less harmonic

injection to the grid and has become possible due to low cost digital
signal processors and new power devices such as IGBTs and MOSFETs. The design concept of small wind turbine has progressed from
induction generator based xed speed, apping/passive pitchingcontrolled drive train with gearbox to PMG based variable speed,
furling/soft stall-controlled systems with or without gearbox.
Fig. 1 shows the widely used conguration of a small grid connected
PMG based wind turbine system. This arrangement employs a PCS
which includes a 3-phase bridge rectier, a boost converter and a
grid connected inverter. The boost converter boosts the voltage of
the dc link as required by the inverter. The boost converter or inverter is controlled so as to ensure optimum power extraction, high
overall conversion efciency and variable speed operation. A drawback of this conguration is the use of an inverter for grid connection. The inverter used by the wind turbine industry is primarily
designed for PV applications [13]. Reliability of such grid connected
inverters is ambiguous [13] and several key aspects to increase the
reliability of such inverters have been identied by previous
researchers [4,12,14]. The dominant factor that contributes low
technical reliability is the heat generation caused by the power
losses when the current ows through the semiconductor switches
[2,12,15]. A reduction in heat generation can signicantly increase
the reliability. In addition, fans inside the inverter have a limited
lifetime and deserve special attention [12]. Nevertheless, there
are other aspects (e.g. humidity, modularity, and packaging) that
also require special attention beyond the technical improvement
and are not a part of this present study.

Fig. 1. Grid connected, PMG based small wind turbine system.

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3. Failure modes of small wind turbine systems

4.1. Loss analysis for a PMG based SWT

The need for long term eld data is of great importance to the
evaluation of technical and economical performances. Long term
failure and reliability data for wind turbine subsystems are readily
available because of the signicant (and growing) number of wind
turbines of various age, type and location in existence across the
world. This information facilitates the identication of the most
probable failure subsystems in WECS, and allows optimization of
the design features as well as system conguration. A review has
been conducted for the failure distribution of SWT subsystems.
Data published by The Scientic Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (WMEP) in Germany [16], Elsfork, Sweden [17], and Landwirtschaftskammer, Schleswing-Holstein, Germany (LWK) [18] are
presented in Fig. 2 along with the large wind turbine data provided
by DOWEC project in Netherland [19]. In the review, mechanical
subsystems consist of drive train, gears, mechanical brakes,
hydraulics, yaw system hubs, and blade/pitch while, the generator,
sensors, electric system, and control system comprise the electrical
subsystem. The distribution of the number of failure depicted in
Fig. 2 shows that the sum of the failure rates of the electrical related subsystems is higher in contrast to the mechanical subsystems. A completely reverse portrait exists for large wind turbines
where the failure mode is principally dominated by the mechanical
subsystems. Indeed, the electric and control system composed of
power electronic components is an integral part of any PCS which
not only dictates the performance but also bear a major fraction of
the overall cost for a small WECS. As a whole, in order to ensure
high reliability, attention should be focused on small WECS with
straightforward but reliable PCS design that ensure easy maintenance and repair as well as less complexity in the control architecture for an optimum life.

For the 3-phase diode bridge rectier, the losses are calculated
for a single diode from the known voltage and current equations. It
is assumed that the current and voltage in the 3-phase diode
bridge rectier are equally distributed in the diodes. Knowing the
voltage and current for one diode, the losses can be obtained for
all the diodes in the bridge rectier. The conduction losses, P DB
cd;d
for the diode is expressed as

PDB
cd;d V f 0 Id

Under the assumption of a linear loss model for the diodes, the
switching loss in each diode is given by [20]

PDB
sw;d fWT ESR 

V dc1 Idc1

V ref ;d Iref ;d

The total losses of the 3-phase diode bridge rectier, PDB

t;d for all 6
diodes is given by
DB
DB
DB
DB
PDB
t;d 6P cd;d 6P sw;d P cdt;d P swt;DB

The conduction and switching loss of the Boost Converter (BC) is

calculated by assuming an ideal inductor (LD) at the boost converter input. For a boost conguration, the IGBT is turned on for
the duration d while the diode (D) conducts for the duration
(1d). The conduction current of the IGBT is the input current
Idc1 while the inverter input current Idc2 is given by

Idc2 Idc1 1  d

The conduction loss for the diode and IGBT can be obtained by
multiplying their on-state voltage and current with the respective
duty cycle and is given by [21]

PBC
cd;d Idc1 V f 0 r d Idc1  1  d

4. Mathematical analysis

PBC
cd;IGBT

A mathematical analysis of the power losses in the power electronics components, i.e., semiconductors (diodes/IGBTs) is required
in order to complete a reliability analysis of the conguration. The
losses for the power conditioning systems are strongly dependent
on the voltage and current waveforms. Simplied analytical derivation of voltage and current equations associated with the individual semiconductor components are derived to determine the
losses. The loss calculation presented in this investigation focus
on the losses generated during the conduction and switching states
of the semiconductors. Afterwards, the mathematical analysis for
reliability of the system is presented.

The commutation voltage and current for the boost converter is

the DC link voltage, Vdc2 and input current to the converter, Idc1. The
switching losses for a specic switching frequency, fSW of the diode
and IGBT in the BC are given by [21]

Idc1 V ce0 r ce Idc1  d

PBC
sw;d fsw ESR 

V dc2 Idc1
:
V ref ;d Iref ;d

PBC
sw;IGBT fsw EON EOFF 

7
V dc2
Idc1

V ref ;IGBT Iref ;IGBT

The sum of (5)(8) gives the losses of the BC as

PBC
t;dIGBT


 

BC
BC
BC
PBC
cd;d P sw;d P cd;IGBT P sw;IGBT

Most of the SWT systems integrate a single phase inverter for

industrial as well as residential application. With the exclusion of
snubber circuit, the inverter consists of four switches and four anti
parallel diodes as presented in Fig. 1. The conduction losses of a
diode and IGBT for the inverter can be expressed as [22],

PINV
cd1;d
PINV
cd1;IGBT





1 M
1 M
cos h rd I2om

cos h V f 0 Iom
8 3p
2 8




1 M
1 M
2

cos h r ce Iom

cos h V ce0 Iom

8 3p
2 8

10
11

An approximated solution for the diode and IGBT switching

losses at an output current io is given by [21]

PINV
sw1;IGBT
PINV
sw1;d
Fig. 2. Distribution of the number of failures of small wind turbine subsystems.

fsw EON EOFF 

fsw ESR

V dc2 Io
V ref ;d Iref ;d

V dc2
Io
V ref ;IGBT Iref ;IGBT

12

13

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The total loss of the inverter is obtained as the sum of (10)(13)

PINV
t;dIGBT
where

PINV
cd;d

PINV
cd;d

PINV
cd;IGBT

4P INV
cd1;d

and

PINV
sw;d

PINV
cd;IGBT

PINV
sw;IGBT

4PINV
cd1;IGBT

14
and

INV
INV
INV
PINV
sw;d 4P sw1;IGBT and P sw;IGBT 4P sw1;IGBT

The power loss of the conversion stage of the PMG based SWT is
given by
BC
INV
PPMG
PDB
t
t;d P t;dIGBT P t;dIGBT

15

4.3. Reliability calculation for a PMG based SWT

The reliability analysis for the PCS of the PMG based conguration is performed by the formulation described in Sections 4.1 and
4.2. A Matlab program is developed which computes the component junction temperature using the conduction and switching loss
formulations described in Section 4.1. After the determination of
the failure rate for each component using (19), the program sums
up the failure rates to evaluate the total system failure rates (20).
The reliability of the system is obtainable once the system MTBF
(21) is known. A brief schematic of the program and its operating
procedure is given in Fig. 3.

4.2. Reliability analysis for a PMG based SWT

5. Results
Reliability is the probability that a component will satisfactorily perform its intended function under given operating conditions. The average time of satisfactory operation of a system is
the mean time between failures (MTBF) and a higher value of
MTBF refers to a higher reliable system and vice versa. As a result, engineers and designers always strive to achieve higher
MTBF of the power electronic components for reliable design of
the power electronic systems. The MTBF calculated in this paper
is carried out at the component level and is based on the life
time relationship where the failure rate is constant over time
in a bathtub curve [23]. In addition, the system is considered
repairable. It is assumed that the system components are connected in series from the reliability standpoint. The lifetime of
a power semiconductor is calculated by considering junction
temperature as a covariate for the expected reliability model.
The junction temperature for a semiconductor device can be calculated as [24]

T J T A Ploss RJA

16

The analytical calculations illustrated in the preceding section

were carried out to determine the MTBF and consequently the reliability of a SWT conguration for a pre-assumed wind speed condition. The rated power for the wind turbine is assumed to be
1.5 kW. The expected operating condition of the rated wind speed
is considered as 13 m/s. It is assumed that the generator speed is
proportional to the output voltage of the 3-phase bridge rectier
which provides a rated 280 volt output at the rectier terminal
at the rated rotational speed. The switching frequency of the boost
converter and inverter is considered as 20 kHz which is usual for
most of the practical applications [27]. In order to investigate the
worst case scenario of the power loss in the numerical simulation
study, the modulation index is assumed unity and the load current
is assumed to be in phase with the output. A standard grid is
considered which will reect the optimum behavior as required
by the optimum wind turbine operation. The analytical calculation
is based on the data sheet on the EUPEC IGBT module
FP15R12W1T4_B3 [28] and the parameters are provided in Appen-

Ploss is the power loss (switching and conduction loss) generated

within a semiconductor device and can be found by replacing the
Ploss from the loss analysis described in Section 4.1 for each
component.
The life time, LT J of a semiconductor is then described as

LT J L0 exp

B
DT J


17

where L0 is the quantitative normal life measurement (h) assumed

to be 1  106, B EKA ; K is the Boltzmans constant which has a value
of 8.6  105 eV/K, EA is the activation energy, which is assumed to
be 0.2 eV, a typical value for semiconductors [25], DT J is the variation of junction temperature and can be expressed as

1
1
1


DT J T A T J

18

The failure rate, is described by [26]

1
LT J

19

The global failure rate, ksystem is then obtained as the summation

of the local failure rates, ki as:

ksystem

N
X

ki

20

i1

The mean time between failures, MTBFsystem and reliability,

Rsystem of the system are given, respectively by

MTBFsystem

1
ksystem

ksystem t

Rsystem e

21
22

Fig. 3. Determining system reliability through component reliability for a PMG

based SWT.

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Table 1
Component reliability for a grid connected small PMG based system.
Quantity

Power loss (W)

Junction temperature (K)
Life expectancy (h)
Failure rate (h1)

Rectier

Boost converter

Diode

Diode

IGBT

Diode

IGBT

1.4256
300.0671
9.7353  105
1.0272  106

9.9536
312.4328
8.3536  105
1.1971  106

52.8391
353.4810
5.4270  105
1.8426  106

6.8440
316.4789
7.9662  105
1.2553  106

6.8440
312.3725
8.3596  105
1.1962  106

dix A (Table A.1). The results of the analysis following the procedure outlined in Section 4.3 are presented in Table 1.
It is well understood that small wind turbines and so as the
PCSs need to be affordable, reliable and most importantly, almost
maintenance free for the average person consider installing one.
The calculation revealed that the PCS failure rate is 1:9009
105 and MTBF is 5:2607  104 h (6 years). As can be seen, the
need of replacing the PCS corresponds to the MTBF value of
6 years leads to a more vulnerable system as compared to the life
span of the wind turbine system, which is usually 1520 years.
Also from the nancial standpoint, replacement of such a complex
PCS is expensive and needs a highly skilled repair professional.
Fig. 4 shows the reliability of the PCS for a period of 1 year
(8760 h). The result reveals that the reliability of the PCS drops
to 84% after 1 year and is less than 50% at 40,000 h (4.5 years)
as shown in Fig. 5, which is undesirable for a SWT turbine due
to high maintenance and replacement costs. In addition, a reliable
PCS is desirable by sacricing a small percentage of the total system efciency. The analysis thus helps to recognize that an optimum substitute PCS design is fundamental prior to operation of
the small wind turbine system leading to a more robust system.
The emphasis is then given to identify the most important subsystems in the PCS that is the least reliable. To achieve this objective, the MTBF of the bridge rectier is decreased by 50% while the
MTBFs of the boost converter and inverter are unchanged. In the
same way, the effect of changes in the MTBFs for each of the boost
converter and inverter on the systems reliability has been calculated and is presented in Fig. 6 along with the actual reliability of
the system. It is observed from that the inverter is the dominating
subsystem while, the boost converter has less signicant effect
than the bridge rectier. It has been found in the literature that
the inverter is the least reliable system [29]. This study conrms
the results through quantitative analysis. The reliability of such
complex power electronics system decreases dramatically and is

Fig. 4. Reliability of the power conditioning system during a year.

Inverter

not desirable especially for a SWT system. Nonetheless, a higher

reliability of the PCS is achievable by changing the operating point
of the switching frequency. The losses of power electronic components typically increase with an increase in switching frequency
and subsequently increase the failure rate leading to a decrease
in the MTBF and vice versa. For low switching frequency, however,
the ripple in the current is substantial, and there could be a considerable difference in turn-on and turn-off losses. A tradeoff should
be made between the operating point of switching frequency and
the desired performance of the system. An investigation is carried
out in order to observe the dependency of the MTBF on switching

Fig. 5. Reliability of the power conditioning system over time.

Fig. 6. Effect of reliability variation for the rectier, boost converter, and inverter on
the system reliability.

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Table 2
Variation of system efciency and MTBF with switching frequency.
Switching frequency (kHz)
10
20
30

Efciency (%)
90
86
82

Table A.1
Parameters of the IGBT module.
MTBF (h)
4

5.5090  10
5.2607  104
5.0236  104

frequency. Recall from Section 4.1, a change in switching frequency

changes the power loss in the PCS thus changes the efciency of
the PCS and accordingly, the MTBF of the system. Table 2 presents
the variation of efciency and MTBF with a change in switching
frequency. A 100% increase in switching frequency (1020 kHz) decreases the efciency and MTBF of the PCS by 4% and 4.5%, respectively, while 200% increase in switching frequency (1030 kHz)
replicate the efciency and MTBF of the PCS as 8% and 9% respectively. This leads to an imperative observation that operating the
system at a lower (higher) switching frequency will increase (decrease) the efciency and MTBF, but the changes in MTBF is insignicant. A decrease in switching frequency augments the cost due
to the installation of a lter circuit at the output of the PCS and
commences lower order harmonics to the system. In contrast to
the lower switching frequency, a higher switching frequency will
introduce higher order harmonics and can be easily ltered out
using less costly lter circuit with an expanse of low efciency.
In conclusion, lower switching frequency leads higher efciency
of the PCS with an introduction of lower order harmonics and high
cost, while the opposite picture can be portrayed for the higher
switching frequency, however, in either scenario, there is no significant changes is observed in the system MTBF. As a whole, the
scope of research should be aimed at an optimum conguration
that will have less power losses, high efciency as well as less complex architecture and consequently will be more reliable and less
costly during the operation. One such possible conguration is a
wound rotor induction generator based variable speed SWT. Losses
and reliability analysis and system details of such a conguration
will be presented in future publications.
6. Conclusions
A brief review of the distribution of failures for SWT subsystems
is presented to recognize the frequent failure of subsystems of a
small wind turbine system. The reliability analysis of the power
conditioning system for a PMG based SWT system is presented.
Temperature is used as a covariate for reliability analysis and it
is found that such conguration suffers from low reliability. The
least reliable component is identied as the inverter of the power
conditioning system and a variation of operating point on the PCS
reliability is investigated. It has been concluded that to achieve a
better reliability, small wind turbines should use a grid connected
conguration that requires minimal power electronics.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Canada for providing nancial
support of this research. The author wish to thank Mr. F.I. Khan,
Associate Professor, Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science
of Memorial University of Newfoundland for the support he provided during this research.
Appendix A
Table A.1.

Housing type

EASY PIM1B

Ic,nom (A)
Vce0 (V)
rce (X)
EON (mJ)
EOFF (mJ)
Vfo (V)
rd (X)
EESR (mJ)
Diode RJA (K/W)
IGBT RJA (K/W)

15
2.15
0.0833
1.75
1.20
0.7
0.07
0.68
1.05
1.75

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Energy (2009), doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2009.01.009