Lifetime Analysis of Photovoltaic Inverter Based on Geographical Site of Installation

The location of installation of PV inverters dictates the input solar energy and hence, the power processed by them. The different processed powers and ambient temperatures are expected to change the thermal loading which affects the lifetime of PV inverters. For techno-economical analysis of PV installation and accurate warranty predictions, it is essential to conduct the reliability study of solar PV inverter for the specific site of installation. In this paper, a geographical location-based lifetime study of PV inverter topologies is carried out. The five-year long mission profiles of six-distinct geographical locations with different climatic conditions are considered. Four popularly employed transformerless PV inverter circuit topologies are selected for the analysis. The key contributions of this paper are, (i) it provides guidelines for the selection of inverter topology at the location of installation, (ii) it suggests a methodology for the lifetime comparison of power semiconductor devices within the topology for different locations.