Medium voltage multilevel converters for ship electric propulsion drives

Author

Thantirige, Kalpani ; Rathore, Akshay Kumar ; Panda, Sanjib Kumar ; Jayasignhe, Gamini ; Zagrodnik, Michael Adam ; Gupta, Amit Kumar

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Nat. Univ. of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

fYear

2015

fDate

3-5 March 2015

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

7

Abstract

An increasing number of ships are being integrated with electric propulsion systems and a significant proportion of these require variable frequency drives in the multi-megawatt range. At such large power, medium voltage AC (MVAC) drive offers numerous advantages over low voltage AC (LVAC) solution. This paper examines the state-of-the art MV drives and their development trends for marine applications. Further, a review is carried out on multilevel converter (MLC) topologies suitable for high power ship propulsion drives. A variety of topologies are evaluated for marine applications based their specific requirements. From the review, it is concluded that hybrid solution seems the most attractive option for the specified application.

Keywords

AC motor drives; electric propulsion; marine propulsion; power convertors; ships; variable speed drives; MLC topologies; MV drives; MVAC drive; electric propulsion systems; high power ship propulsion drives; marine applications; medium voltage AC drive; multilevel converter topologies; variable frequency drives; Inverters; Marine vehicles; Power semiconductor devices; Power systems; Propulsion; Reliability; Topology; Marine electric propulsion; Medium voltage; Multilevel converter; Variable frequency drives;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Electrical Systems for Aircraft, Railway, Ship Propulsion and Road Vehicles (ESARS), 2015 International Conference on

Conference_Location

Aachen

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ESARS.2015.7101463

Filename

7101463