High Efficiency and High Power Quality Electrical Power Conversion Navy SBIR FY2008.2 Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2008.2 Topic No.: N08-181 Topic Title: High Efficiency and High Power Quality Electrical Power Conversion Proposal No.: N082-181-0243 Firm: SatCon Applied Technology, Inc. 27 Drydock Avenue Boston, Massachusetts 02210 Contact: Jim Munro Phone: (410) 694-8048 Web Site: www.satcon.com Abstract: The proposed shipboard medium voltage AC to DC converter system will allow for various input and output levels based on a power dense, efficient, low cost, high quality output, and modular design expandable up to 6MW. A 450kW power conversion module uses advanced power switching devices and a uniquely designed isolation transformer. The 13.8kV module front-end is connected across a series cascade of H-Bridges that are switched at a low frequency to reduce losses, synthesize a high quality sine wave, operate at unity power factor, and meet low current distortion per MIL-STD-1399-680. Each DC output of the H-Bridge section acts as an input for a Series Loaded Resonant DC/DC converter that includes high frequency transformer isolation. The SLR converter uses Super Gate Turn Off devices from Silicon Power Corporation operating at a high frequency to minimize the transformer. Low output DC ripple is realized by full wave rectifying and interleaving each SLR output to form a single DC output. Multiple paralleled modules combine to achieve a ripple voltage of 0.1% rated up to 6MW. Each module output is regulated to handle transient load conditions and can be adjusted between 800-to-1000V as influenced by the transformer turns ration. Benefits: SatCon is currently co-developing an Intelligent Universal Transformer with EPRI and SPCO based on this topology as a replacement for pole transformers. This approach could also be used in any system where medium voltage AC/DC converters are used - aircraft power system, distributed generation, DC UPC architecture, and Power Conditioning systems. The proposed shipboard medium voltage AC to DC converter system will allow for various input and output levels based on a power dense, efficient, low cost, high quality output, modular design that is expandable up to 6MW. Return