This project will support and advance P. Judge and R. Mathieson’s development as early career researchers by providing and expanding upon key pieces of experimental equipment within the power electronics lab at the University of Edinburgh, providing an upgraded facility that will unlock future research proposals for both of this proposal’s PIs, and the wider power electronics team at the University of Edinburgh.
It will focus on upgrading and significantly expanding the capability of a custom-built Silicon Carbide MOSFET grid emulator which is primarily used for testing the performance of advanced wind-turbine converter topologies and control schemes. By increasing the number of output amplifier channels from 1 to 2, the Grid Emulator will be capable of: (i) bi-directional power-flow, increasing the type of converters that the grid emulator can be used with, (ii) emulating the DC side and AC side of a converter under test, allowing emulated turbine generator dynamics and DC-voltage disturbances to be included in tests, and (iii) multi-port AC grid emulation for Microgrid tests. Through minor re-arrangements the system will also be capable of (iv) performing continuous operation testing of high-current power semiconductors, providing an experimental test bench for testing advanced active-gate driving and parallel operation of high-current Silicon Carbide MOSFETs.
