Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year (2017-2018 to 2018-2019).

With an expected rise of over 15% in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2020 from 2010 in Canada, it isx000D
crucial to reduce GHG emissions by embracing clean and sustainable energy sources. Various initiativex000D
programs and generous incentives are offered across Canada such as the WindVision2025 project that seeks tox000D
produce enough clean wind power to meet 20% of Canada's domestic electricity demand by 2025. In a typicalx000D
windfarm, as the output voltage of the wind turbine is too low for effective long-distance power transmission, ax000D
dedicated low frequency medium voltage (MV) step-up transformer is used for each wind turbine to step up thex000D
turbine output voltage to the MV level. However, the step-up transformers are bulky; heavy, and typicallyx000D
located in the immediate vicinity of the wind turbines. Ontario-based manufacturer of electrical transformers,x000D
Northern Transformer Corporation has started to look into innovative power solutions to replace the lowx000D
frequency MV transformers with compact and highly efficient power electronic step-up converters for highx000D
power wind turbines. Although various types of medium to high frequency step-up power converters havex000D
been reported in literature for wind energy application, they either have restricted operating frequency rangex000D
due to the presence of switching power loss or require expensive and complicated magnetic components. Inx000D
this project, a new step-up power electronic converter that employs silicon-carbide switching devices withx000D
innovative converter structure to minimize the overall conduction power losses will be devised. New insulationx000D
material will be investigated and used to enable the high frequency transformer in the devised converter tox000D
operate at higher temperatures and hence reducing the cooling requirement of the overall system.