Fraunhofer Institute for Silicon Technology
Fraunhofer Institute for Silicon Technology

Medium Voltage Lab

Fraunhofer ISIT has developed a broad range of expertise and facilities, including MV-power converters for grid forming and storage management systems. With its laboratory equipped with state-of-the-art instrumentation, ISIT is ideally suited to testing and prototyping medium-voltage components and converters. By combining ISIT‘s know-how with its clients‘ technical requirements, ISIT can design advanced MV solutions to develop the modern hybrid grids of the coming years.

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Fraunhofer ISIT develops high power modular multilevel converters (MMCs).  Our 10 kV prototype, designed for direct connection to the medium voltage grid, has the following features:
 
  • 10 kV Modular Multilevel Converter with 500 kVA processing capability
  • 48 modules, 9 level output voltage
  • Suitable for implementing MVAC, MVDC, and hybrid grids
  • Decouple grids regardless of frequency, voltage and quality
  • Integration of renewables and energy storage systems to the grid 
  • Wide DC output voltage range for medium-voltage systems
  • Control load flow and provide reactive power
  • Step-down operation to increase inter-connectivity to hybrid grids
  • DC fault ride-through by adopting full-bridge technology
  • Innovative overcurrent management to support AC grids

The test fields at Fraunhofer ISIT cover a wider area which includes several test benches with state-of-the-art equipment. Using the latest technologies, wide range of tests can be executed at the medium voltage laboratory, from large-scale test benches to component-level testing facilities with circulating power up to 1 MW facilitated by liquid and air cooling.

 

  • Availability of 3 phase 100 kW automotive inverter test bench​
  • Quick evaluation of different commercial and custom gate drivers and driving strategies​
  • Capable of simultaneous monitoring of 24 thermal hotspots for real design stress/mission tests​
  • Validation of different thermal models for the performance evaluation of the power semiconductor modules​
  • Evaluation of active thermal control strategies for different mission profiles​
  • Connection to an active load for full load profile control  

  • Development, validation, and implementation of AC, DC, and hybrid AC-DC Microgrids
  • Real time simulation of grids with renewables and energy storage systems. 
  • Investigation of the interface between real devices and emulated systems​
  • Grid connected power converter modelling and control for stable and well-damped dynamics
  • Scalable structure of the voltage source converter model for nonlinear converter-dominated power systems​
  • Improved reactive current support to ​enhance the voltage recovery capability ​under weak grid conditions​