Life Cycle Cost impact of a SiC MOSFET converter used for a Wave Power Application

Paper in proceeding, 2020

In this work, 1700 V IGBT and SiC MOSFET based power electronic converters used in a wave energy application are compared, from a performance perspective, as well as economically, in order to obtain a favorable design. The converter losses of the variants are compared and the efficiencies and the annual energy losses achieved by both are presented. The economical impact is studied through life cycle cost analysis, where the investment costs and the net present value of the losses of the IGBT and SiC MOSFET WEC systems are compared, as well as their life cycle costs. The study shows that by utilizing SiC MOSFETs, and in total the converter losses decrease by over 1000 W. This results in a 4.3 MWh annual energy loss reduction, which has a positive economical impact of e23000 during the life time of the wave enery converter. The high cost of the SiC MOSFETs increase the investment cost to twice of the IGBT system, however due to the significant reduction of the net present value of the losses, the life cycle cost of the SiC MOSFET system is e15500 lower than its IGBT counterpart.