Industrial air pollution in Europe costs up to 189 billion annually, of which 4 billion is
directly attributed to suspended particulate matter (PM), stimulating mandatory air quality
control measures. Electrostatic precipitation (ESP) is an effective method to charge and
capture transient dust particles, using large electric fields produced by high voltage (HV) DC
power supplies, with performance highly dependent on the DC properties. Historically, line
frequency (LF) HVDC supplies have prevailed but the continual reduction in the level of
tolerated emissions has placed a ceiling on the effectiveness on these power supplies due to
performance limitations. In contrast high frequency (HF) HVDC supplies based on series
resonant conversion (SRC) are highly compact and have been shown to significantly increase
the emissions performance of ESP due to improved average power, stability and control of the
output. However, the complexity of existing HF HVDC supplies is greatly increased, leading
to difficulties with component failure, thermal management and higher installation/throughlife
costs.
Castlet Ltd (CL) seek to lift these restrictions by developing a compact, high-performance,
low-cost power supply - type-approved for ESP applications – underpinned by a novel
modulation scheme for insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBT). Building on a technical
feasibility study and KTP activities - and using CL’s expertise in power electronics - the
project aims to provide a step-change in output voltage limit, dynamic range, power factor,
thermal load and scalability, driving uptake and improvement in air quality control with
respect to existing ESP power supply technologies. Project outcomes will be demonstrated
through prototype power supplies installed for field testing in the energy, cement and steel
industries.