Variable Voltage IGBT Gate Driver for Low Voltage Hybrid Circuit Breaker
In this work, design and development of a variable voltage IGBT gate driver used in a low voltage DC hybrid circuit breaker (HCB) is presented. An HCB is designed with a nominal rating of 100 A 760V, to interrupt a detected fault within approximately 650 \mu$ s in a power grid with prospective 15 kA short circuit capacity. The gate driver, only during the switching off operation under fault event, increases gate voltage from 15 V to 24 V to shift up collector current saturation point so that a standard 400 A IGBT module can conduct an average of 2.6 kA with a peak of 3.6 kA for a maximum of 485 \mu$ s. For safety and reliability reasons, in steady state on state operation, 15 V is applied. This allows for the realization of the most compact, cost effective, and reliable HCB.
2021 IEEE Fourth International Conference on DC Microgrids (ICDCM)