Influence of Battery Aging on Converter Switching Device Degradation

In this work, a methodology to examine the influence of battery degradation on the converter semiconductor switching devices is presented. A PV-battery case study is used to demonstrate the methodology and show possible results. Initially, the results indicate a very limited influence of the battery on converter lifetime of 1 %. This is due to counteracting effects during battery degradation, which both decreases the power flow through the converter but increases the losses. A second simulation with constant power flow, isolating the effect of the reduced energy flow, showed an 9 % converter lifetime decrease using a degrading battery, demonstrating the underlying effect. The paper shows the battery model, converter model and case study results including battery degradation profiles, converter losses and reliability distributions.