Real-time optimization of thermal cycling capability of rotor side converter in doubly fed induction generator- based wind energy conversion system

The power command in wind energy conversion system is subjected to the wind speed fluctuation, these power fluctuation may cause significant thermal cycling of the (IGBT) power converter with reduction in lifetime as a result. In this work the (DFIG) is used as a starting point, average model is adopted to replace the switching circuits in three phase back to back PWM to make the simulation environment run faster and a detailed thermal model for the converter is implemented and simulated based on the state of the art on (IGBT) reliability, the lifetime is estimated. This paper demonstrates that using low pass filter (LPF) on power command can reduce the number of thermocycles and improve the system lifetime.