Open Access

ARTICLE

Active Thermal Control for Lifetime Extension of Wind Power Converter

Yihua Zhu¹, Chao Luo¹, Yuxia Tang¹, Renxin Yang^2,*
1 China Southern Power Grid Scientific Research Institute Co., Ltd., Guangzhou, China
2 School of Electrical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
* Corresponding Author: Renxin Yang. Email:

Energy Engineering https://doi.org/10.32604/ee.2026.075636

Received 05 November 2025; Accepted 12 January 2026; Published online 30 January 2026

Abstract

With the rapid development of renewable energy, the proportion of wind power generation in modern power systems has been steadily increasing. Benefiting from the high controllability of power electronic converters, wind energy can be efficiently transmitted to the grid through power conversion stages. However, the reliability of wind turbine systems is closely related to the thermal stress and degradation of power semiconductor devices. The diversity of actual operating conditions and the rapid fluctuations of grid load bring significant challenges to their safe and stable operation. To address these issues, this paper establishes an online electro-thermal model of the wind power converter, enabling real-time estimation of power loss and junction temperature. Two typical scenarios—grid frequency disturbance and grid voltage fault—are analyzed to evaluate their impact on device lifetime. Based on the modeling results, an active thermal control (ATC) strategy is proposed to dynamically suppress junction temperature fluctuations and thereby extend the converter’s service life. Finally, simulations are conducted using PLECS to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results demonstrate that the ATC scheme can effectively reduce the junction temperature swing and improve the lifetime of power semiconductor devices without affecting power conversion performance, providing a practical approach for enhancing the reliability of wind power converters.

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Keywords

Wind power converter; lifetime estimation; switching frequency; junction temperature; active thermal control; grid faults

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