Reactive Power Impact on Lifetime Prediction of Two-level Wind Power Converter

The influence of reactive power injection on the dominating two-level wind power converter is investigated and compared in terms of power loss and thermal behavior. Then the lifetime of both the partial-scale and full-scale power converter is estimated based on the widely used Coffin-Manson model. It is concluded that the injection of the reactive power could have serious impact on the power loss and thermal profile, especially at lower wind speed. Furthermore, the introduction of the reactive power could also shorten the lifetime of the wind power converter significantly.