Life-cycle energy demand comparison of medium voltage Silicon IGBT and Silicon Carbide MOSFET power semiconductor modules in railway traction applications

Power semiconductors process roughly 70 % of global energy, with a higher percentage expected as worldwide transport electrification, renewables and wide-band-gap (WBG) semiconductors are implemented, significantly affecting global energy savings. This manuscript evaluates the cumulative energy dema...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Power electronic devices and components Vol. 6; p. 100050
Main Authors:	Spejo, Lucas Barroso, Akor, Innocent, Rahimo, Munaf, Minamisawa, Renato Amaral
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Elsevier 01-10-2023
Subjects:	Life cycle energy assessment Power electronics Power semiconductor module Railway traction Silicon carbide MOSFET Silicon IGBT
Online Access:	Get full text
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Summary:	Power semiconductors process roughly 70 % of global energy, with a higher percentage expected as worldwide transport electrification, renewables and wide-band-gap (WBG) semiconductors are implemented, significantly affecting global energy savings. This manuscript evaluates the cumulative energy demand (CED) encompassing the manufacture and use-phase in a railway traction application of silicon (Si) and silicon carbide (SiC) power semiconductor modules. Realistic manufacturing data from a power semiconductor fab has been considered for 3.3 kV/450 A state-of-the-art Si and SiC LinPak modules. SiC devices presented around 2.6 – 3.8× higher CED per area than Si devices in the manufacturing phase. However, due to the considerably smaller SiC chip area per ampere required, a 1.1 – 1.6× lower grey energy than Si technology is estimated. For the first time, such analysis is based on specialized power semiconductor fab data for both technologies and provides a baseline for the life cycle energy assessment of power electronics systems. Besides, the use-phase energy losses were evaluated for a realistic railway application, considering an operational lifetime of 30 years. The module manufacturing energy is negligible compared to the use-phase stage. Furthermore, the SiC technology presented an estimated energy-saving potential of 24 MWh/lifetime per module compared to the Si device.
ISSN:	2772-3704 2772-3704
DOI:	10.1016/j.pedc.2023.100050