Design and evaluation criteria for high power drives

The need to increase the amount of mineral being processed has originated the use of High Power Converters (HPC), many of them in the Megawatt range. There are several design aspects which must fulfill the operational requirements, which mean technical challenges for designers, manufacturers and operators. This paper presents the general requirements for high power drives applied to the most used industrial topologies (Cycloconverters, Current Source Inverters, Neutral Point Clamped and H-Bridge Cascade), and the design aspect for these converters. This paper includes evaluation criteria and some practical experiences.