Improvement of MV Cascaded H-Bridge Inverter (CHBI) VFD Availability for High-Power ESP Oil Wells

Artificial lift systems are generally applied in the petroleum industry to provide the energy to transfer the oil from the reservoir to the surface. Electrical submersible pump (ESP) system is an artificial lift method extensively used in recovery. The maintenance cost of ESP and associate equipment is very high; therefore, the maximum availability of the system components is continuously sought. The aim of this paper is at analyzing the availability and reliability of frequency converters applied to medium voltage (MV) multilevel cascaded H-bridge inverters topology for ESP. A method to increase availability of MV frequency drives is thus proposed, enabling fewer losses in the production and a greater return on the economic investment (ROI).