Evaluation of 2.5 kV Silicon Carbide MOSFET for 1.5 kV Solar Inverter Application

1.5 kV DC link voltage has been a trend for the solar industry. Moving from 1 kV to 1.5 kV DC voltage can increase string length, enhance inverter conversion ability, increase array block sizes, and improve performance. Multilevel converters are the natural choices while the control becomes more complicated. If a simple two-level converter is adopted, the 1.7 kV device may not be applicable considering the voltage derating for certain failure rate. Therefore, devices with higher blocking voltage should be considered. This paper reports for the first time the performance characterization of 2.5 kV Silicon Carbide (SiC) MOSFET. The potential application of this device for 1.5 kV solar inverter is also evaluated.