CO2 Footprint of DC Solid State Transformer for Linear PV Power Plant

This paper presents a comparison of the carbon footprint of a DC SST designed for a linear PV application with MVDC collection network, and its counterpart for a traditional MVAC architecture. A method is proposed, allowing to calculate the CO2 footprint of the DC SST accounting for the manufacturing emissions of the PV modules. It is found that the energy efficiency of the conversion chain tends to be less and less significant to the overall carbon footprint as the energy mix shifts towards renewable energy sources. The manufacturing emissions of the conversion chain are thus to be reduced in the future. For PV power plants this can be achieved thanks to MVDC collection network.