Reliability Analysis of Power Electronic-based Power Systems

In power electronic-based power systems (PEPS), challenges are arising such as how to ensure a reliable power system, although increasingly efforts have been made to enhance the reliability of power electronics at the component-level and converter-level. Existing methods for single converter reliability analysis might not be scalable for system-level reliability analysis in power systems. Thus, this paper presents a general concept on the reliability analysis in PEPS to curb the arising issues. The concept considers the individual reliability matrices and more importantly, takes the complicated interactions and cross coupling-effects among multiple converters into account and thereby improve the reliability of next generation power systems. This will be beneficial for power system operators, end-users and the average electrical consumer with the possibility to decrease the costs related to component failures, maintenance and also system downtime as a result of advancing the system reliability.