Unified design approach for single- and 3-phase input air conditioning systems using SiC devices

This paper examines the approach, enabled by using SiC power devices, to unify the inverter design for central air conditioning (CAC) system for both single- and 3-phase input, and reduce the PFC inductor size to be PCB-mountable. By using SiC-instead of Si-diode in PFC stage, it is possible to increase the switching frequency from 16kHz to 60kHz to reduce the required PFC inductance from 0.93mH to 0.25mH, thus enable PCB-mounting of inductor. With the next step of using 1200V SiC MOSFET instead of Si-IGBT, the DC link voltage can be boosted from 311Vdc to 550Vdc in PFC stage, allowing the inverter and compressor used in 3-phase input CAC be used for single-phase input as well. Furthermore, using SiC MOSFET in inverter stage can further reduce total loss system total loss to 200.8 W. Simulation and experimental results are presented in the paper.