Re:Australia approves 17-20GW solar power link to Singapore
by londons_explore on Wednesday August 21, 2024 @12:37PM
(#41311893)
Semiconductors are stackable to get higher voltage. They're parallelizable for more current.
Cost scales linearly with voltage and current, and is therefore constant WRT to system power.
Re:Australia approves 17-20GW solar power link to Singapore
by tim333 on Wednesday August 21, 2024 @04:01PM
(#41313667)
Re:Australia approves 17-20GW solar power link to Singapore
by londons_explore on Wednesday August 21, 2024 @07:14PM
(#41315123)
Thyristors require you have at least one transformer operate at AC line frequency (50/60Hz). That costs a lot, since you need enough steel to store 20 milliseconds of your total power as a magnetic field. Thyristors are on-off devices (like most semiconductors when used for power conversion), but cannot turn off without zero current, which precludes a bunch of high frequency designs which are better for harmonics and weight-of-steel.
Overall, they were a popular choice in the 90's and 2010's, but I don't think we'll see any new designs installed with them.
Re:Australia approves 17-20GW solar power link to Singapore
by tim333 on Thursday August 22, 2024 @06:56PM
(#41324993)
Ah - right you are. Seems IGBTs are the thing now.
Re:Australia approves 17-20GW solar power link to Singapore
by coryrc on Thursday August 22, 2024 @12:25AM
(#41316812)
I've never heard of MOSFETs being used in extra-high voltage systems, but I have not been following the industry for a while. Do you have any links? I've only seen IGBTs or older technology used.
Why do you believe these things are related?
HVDC lines operate in the hundreds-of-kilovolts range. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basslink operates at 400kV. There are no MOSFETs or JFETs directly involved in stepping down that power.