Power Cycling Capability of High Power IGBT Modules for Flexible HVDC System

High power IGBT (Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor) module is the key component for the flexible HVDC transmission system. The 3300 V 1500 A power IGBT modules were applied to China flexible HVDC projects and should serve up to 30 years or even 40 years. In this paper, 6 IGBT modules (3300 V 1500 A) from three different manufacturers (2 from 1 manufacturer) are tested with the 90 kW 3000 A power cycling test bench to evaluate the long term reliability at 2 different test conditions. One test is with the same load current from the application point of view. Another test is from reliability viewpoint with same junction temperature swing that the long term lifetime of power electronics mainly depends on junction temperature swing according to Coffin-Manson theory. The results show that IGBT modules from manufacturer B and C have similar reliability performance and A is the best with two test conditions. This can give guidance for users to choose the proper IGBT modules according to their applications.