Sustainability Indicators Integration into the Optimal Design Methodology of Power Electronic Converters

This paper presents a method for integrating sustainability indicators into the design of a power electronic converter. The work is based on a set of technological models and constraints that are integrated with a gradient based algorithm to form an optimization tool capable of designing Voltage Source Inverters (VSI). Sustainability models are added considering 2 indicators from the Eco-Invent database: Global Warming Potential (GWP) and Metal and Mineral Resource Depletion (MRD). The methodology is applied to 2 case studies, in order to analyze the results under different conditions. The only difference between the 2 cases is the time of use. The analyses show that technological indicators, such as power density or energy efficiency are not sufficient to ensure a sustainable converter design, especially when the use time is short. Then, the proposed methodology, which combines the power of optimization algorithms and sustainability indicators, is beneficial for assessing the converter's impact on the environment.