What SiC can do for solar inverters

Cree made about its devices was how they can make for much smaller and more efficient inverters. The company demonstrated the idea by constructing solar inverters using its SiC IGBTs (Cree says they are just for technology demonstrations. The company has no intention of entering the inverter business.) The leftmost inverter shown here uses conventional silicon IGBTs and will put out 10 kW. The smaller device in the center of the table is an equivalent 10 kW inverter constructed with SiC IGBTs. The rightmost inverter is a 50 kW inverter built with SiC IGBTs — it is also shown buck naked without its enclosure at left. Cree didn’t bother displaying an equivalent 50 kW silicon inverter, probably because it would have been too big and heavy to sit on a table. The SiC inverter weighed about 73 lb and occupied about 3.2 ft³. An equivalent silicon 50 kW inverter would weigh about 382 lb and take up about 14.5 ft³.

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