GE’s Power Conversion business has unveiled the new powerful MV7-Series, ultimate waveform, multilevel, high-power drive, the MV7-Series Drive with UWave technology.
GE adopted a 5-level topology in its original MV7 technology so that the drive delivers increased voltage and power output.
As an extension of the existing MV7 drive platform, the new UWave drive can operate at up to 13.8 kilovolts with a power capacity of up to 40 megawatts in a single thread, thus an ideal choice for high-power and high-voltage applications across different industries, including oil and gas, marine, renewables and power generation.
The MV7 UWave drive produces cleaner power with fewer harmonics. When feeding into motors, it reduces motor stress and can help increase its life expectancy. Higher power quality also results in cleaner electrical signals making the drive more compatible with the grid, which allows smoother grid integration and a more resilient grid network.
The smoothed voltage waveform and the smaller filters result in reduce footprint and lower construction costs.
“A reduced footprint can in turn reduce construction costs and release space for critical operations—more room for an engine or an extra cabinet onboard a vessel, for example,” said Vincent Schellings, product line leader, power electronics, GE’s Power Conversion business. “Higher power output and yet a smaller footprint makes the MV7 UWave drive more efficient.”
When it comes to offshore operations, this latest drive technology has allowed the removal of the transformer for voltage up to 13.8 kilovolts. This transformer-less design thus can reduce the footprint by up to 40 percent.
In terms of renewables, based on a customer study in the wind industry, the footprint of the system (drive and filter combined) can achieve up to 40 percent reduction compared to a 3-level drive.
The MV7 UWave drive uses standardized component during manufacturing, enabling shorter delivery time and better service, GE said.
The drive is designed to drive induction, synchronous or high-speed motors (up to 300 Hertz) for high-voltage and high-power applications. Several configurations of the MV7 series are available—diode front-end (DFE), active front-end (AFE), N+1 redundancy, transformer-less—to adapt different customer and project needs. It also allows easier integration to the fixed frequency system to become variable speed—a key factor to enable energy efficiency.
Rajani Baburajan