ABSTRACT
The inverter is considered the core of the PV power plant. The inverter's failure leads to generation loss and decreases plant availability. So, it is required to investigate a clear Root Cause Analysis (RCA) to deduce the failure causes and implement the required corrective action in addition to the preventive action to avoid more inverter failure, hereby maintaining the plant available to a certain value. This paper discusses real-time mode operation data analysis of the PV grid-connected inverter due to real central inverter incidents in Benban solar park located in Egypt.The central inverter plays an important role in the Mega-Scale PV power plant. The main function of this inverter is to convert the DC power produced by the PV modules to AC power to be injected into the utility grid by considering specific characteristics based on the grid code. The availability of any PV power plant directly depends on the healthy inverter's operation. The more increases for the installed inverters, the less availability loss in the case of inverter partial or catastrophic failures. So, it is required to focus on the failure causes of the central inverter by implementing a technical analysis using the available operational data. The monitored data of the central inverter in the PV power plant is classified into two types. The first type is the continuous time data stored in the memory. It represents the waveforms of inverter outputs like voltage, current, frequency, . etc. Unfortunately, in case of a catastrophic failure, the central inverter is completely charred, and the continuous time data is lost due to storage memory damage. The second type is the operation data that is recorded by the SCADA system (per one-minute interval). Hereby, the operation data is the sole data in the case of the completely charred inverter. The representation of the operational data in curves indicates symptoms that can be used for the RCA processes. The investigation outcomes include three results. The first result is detecting the signature of the IGBT thermal stress on the voltage balance of the DC link capacitor. The second result is verifying a scenario for the cause of the IGBT failure by implementing a technical mathematical model based on the detected symptoms that denote the fault signature which is considered the thread-tip for detecting the failure cause. The third result is the simulating scenario for the interpretation of a DC link capacitors explosion due to the short circuit fault that occurred due to IGBT failure. The investigation in this paper is performed based on operation data analysis of the PV grid-connected inverter (central type) due to a real incident. The analysis methodology is based on mathematical calculation for the IGBT junction temperature using the measured heatsink temperature. The study concludes that after the IGBT failure occurred, it was a short circuit for a while and closed the terminals of the DC link capacitors. So, the DC link capacitors exploded and produced heavy sparks that led to enough fire to burn the inverter container completely.
ABSTRACT
Reduction of the crosstalk (CT) between contiguous photonic components is still a big challenge in fabricating high packing density photonic integrated circuits (PICs). Few techniques to accomplish that goal have been offered in recent years but all in the near-IR region. In this paper, we report a design for realizing a highly efficient CT reduction in the MIR regime, for the first time to the best of our knowledge. The reported structure is based on the silicon-on-calcium-fluoride (SOCF) platform with uniform Ge/Si strip arrays. Using Ge strips shows better CT reduction and longer coupling length (Lc) than the conventional Si based devices over a wide bandwidth in the MIR region. The effect of adding a different number of Ge and Si strips with different dimensions between two adjacent Si waveguides on the Lc and hence on the CT is analyzed using both full vectorial finite element method and 3D finite difference time domain method. An increase in the Lc by 4 orders of magnitude and 6.5 times are obtained using Ge and Si strips, respectively, compared to strips-free Si waveguides. Consequently, crosstalk suppression of - 35 dB and - 10 dB for the Ge and Si strips, respectively, is shown. The proposed structure is beneficial for high packing density nanophotonic devices in the MIR regime, such as switches, modulators, splitters, and wavelength division (de)multiplexers, which are important for MIR communication integrated circuits, spectrometers, and sensors.
ABSTRACT
The nonlinear Schrödinger equation based on slowly varying approximation is usually applied to describe the pulse propagation in nonlinear waveguides. However, for the case of the front induced transitions (FITs), the pump effect is well described by the dielectric constant perturbation in space and time. Thus, a linear Schrödinger equation (LSE) can be used. Also, in waveguides with weak dispersion the spatial evolution of the pulse temporal profile is usually tracked. Such a formulation becomes impossible for optical systems for which the group index or higher dispersion terms diverge as is the case near the band edge of photonic crystals. For the description of FITs in such systems a linear Schrödinger equation can be used where temporal evolution of the pulse spatial profile is tracked instead of tracking the spatial evolution. This representation provides the same descriptive power and can easily deal with zero group velocities. Furthermore, the Schrödinger equation with temporal evolution can describe signal pulse reflection from both static and counter-propagating fronts, in contrast to the Schrödinger equation with spatial evolution which is bound to forward propagation. Here, we discuss the two approaches and apply the LSE with temporal evolution for systems close to the band edge where the group velocity vanishes by simulating intraband indirect photonic transitions. We also compare the numerical results with the theoretical predictions from the phase continuity criterion for complete transitions.
ABSTRACT
2D integrating cells provide long optical path lengths on a chip by multiple reflections at highly reflective mirrors similar to integrating spheres in free space. Therefore, they build a promising platform for integrated optical absorption sensing. Here, we present first absorption measurements of free carriers generated by a modulated pump laser inside a 2D integrating cell in a silicon slab. The results can be used to evaluate the lifetimes of free carriers in silicon slabs for integrated optics. Employing a silicon-on-insulator platform with a silicon thickness of 220 nm, we demonstrate measurements of the access free-carrier concentration on the order of 1-8·1015 cm-3 with lifetimes on the order of 0.1-1 µs governed by surface recombination at the silicon interfaces. The measured lifetimes are dependent on free-carrier concentration, which confirms previous observations. The presented free-carrier absorption experiment verifies the sensitivity of 2D integrating cells to changes in the absorption coefficient and thus demonstrates the potential of 2D integrating cells for absorption sensing.
ABSTRACT
The original version of this article contained an error in first sentence of the Acknowledgements, which incorrectly read 'M.A.G, D.J., A.Y.P. and M.E. acknowledge the support of the German Research Foundation under grant no. EI 391/13-2, and appreciate the support of CST, Darmstadt, Germany, with their Microwave Studio Software.' The correct version states '261759120' in place of 'EI 391/13-2'. This has been corrected in both the PDF and HTML versions of the article.
ABSTRACT
The reflection of light from moving boundaries is of interest both fundamentally and for applications in frequency conversion, but typically requires high pump power. By using a dispersion-engineered silicon photonic crystal waveguide, we are able to achieve a propagating free carrier front with only a moderate on-chip peak power of 6 W in a 6 ps-long pump pulse. We employ an intraband indirect photonic transition of a co-propagating probe, whereby the probe practically escapes from the front in the forward direction. This forward reflection has up to 35% efficiency and it is accompanied by a strong frequency upshift, which significantly exceeds that expected from the refractive index change and which is a function of group velocity, waveguide dispersion and pump power. Pump, probe and shifted probe all are around 1.5 µm wavelength which opens new possibilities for "on-chip" frequency manipulation and all-optical switching in optical telecommunications.
