Inverter IGBT overtemperature
Power-stage overheating from cooling failure or a blocked heat sink.
IGBT overtemperature is when the inverter’s power-switching stage runs too hot, usually from a failed cooling fan, a clogged heat sink, or high ambient. It forces the inverter to derate (clip) or trip (e.g. Huawei SUN2000 code 6001) and shortens IGBT and DC-link capacitor life.
Symptoms
- Midday derating/clipping that tracks heat-sink temperature.
- Thermal trips on the hottest days or hottest inverters in the row.
- Audible or measured fan fault preceding the temperature rise.
SCADA signatures
- Heat-sink/IGBT temperature climbing toward the OEM limit (<60 °C ambient spec).
- Power derate that correlates with temperature, not irradiance.
- Hardware fault code on a single inverter — e.g. Huawei 6001 IGBT overtemp / 6011 fan abnormal.
Root cause
Cooling-fan bearing wear or dust ingress, a heat sink blocked by debris, or sustained operation above the ambient spec. Each thermal cycle also ages the DC-link capacitors, so the fault compounds other inverter failure modes.
Financial impact
Thermal derating silently clips peak-hour energy, and repeated overtemperature events cut years off the inverter’s service life. A €200 fan replaced on schedule prevents a five-figure power-stage failure.
How NuraVolt detects it
NuraVolt trends per-inverter thermal behaviour and attributes temperature-correlated derating to cooling rather than design clipping. Its RUL layer projects days-to-fault from the temperature trend so the fan is replaced on a planned visit, not after a trip.
Frequently asked questions
See also
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