Dual Channel Control with DC Fault Ride Through for MMC-based, Isolated DC/DC Converter

This study is sponsored by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) grant no EP/K006428/1, 2013.D. Jovcic and H. Zhang are with the School of Engineering, University of Aberdeen, AB24 3UE, U.K. ([email protected], [email protected]).Peer reviewedPostprin

A Novel Three-Level Isolated AC-DC PFC Power Converter Topology with Reduced Number of Switches

The three-level isolated AC-DC power factor corrected (PFC) converter provides safe and more efficient power conversion. In comparison with two-level, three-level PFC converter has the advantages of low total harmonic distortion, low device voltage rating, low di/dt, better output performance, high power factor, and low switching losses at higher switching frequencies. The high frequency transformer (HFT) grants galvanic isolation, steps up or down secondary voltage, and limits damage in case of a fault current. The existing three-level converter based on solid-state transformer (SST) topologies convert ac power from the electrical grid to a dc load while maintaining at least the minimum requirements set by the international standards (i.e., high power factor and low total harmonic distortion). The SST topologies with the capability of controlling intermediate dc-bus and output voltage simultaneously require two full bridges at the primary and secondary side of the HFT. As the power level increases, the number of cascaded bridges increases accordingly, and the price associated with these semiconductor devices becomes highly expensive. As result, the demand of converting high power level led to emphasis on high performance and cost-effective power conversion topology. The aim of this dissertation is to develop a new low-cost and high-performance three-level isolated AC-DC (PFC) converter topology. The proposed topology replaces the conventional three-level inverter in the secondary side of the HFT by only two switches and four diodes while still maintaining the basic functionality of a three-level converter (i.e., regulating the output voltage, controlling the dc-bus voltage to be within desired limits). The advantages of this new topology are: (1) low conduction losses; (2) low-cost; (3) no need to consider the issue of the power backflow; (4) zero-voltage switching (ZVS) and zero-current switching (ZCS) at turn ON are inherently guaranteed without any extra control effort. Two isolated three-level AC-DC power converter topologies are developed and investigated through the dissertation. First topology is based on the neutral point clamping (NPC) converter, and the second topology composed of the T-type converter. Two scale-down prototypes rated at 900-W and 1kW, 200 V are built to test the overall performance of the proposed topologies. The first and second topologies exhibit 94.5 % and 95.8 % efficiency scaled at a nominal power, respectively. The secondary bridge (novel circuit) in both topologies, which consists of two switches and four diodes, has 99.34 % practical efficiency

Review of Electric Vehicle Charging Technologies, Configurations, and Architectures

Electric Vehicles (EVs) are projected to be one of the major contributors to energy transition in the global transportation due to their rapid expansion. The EVs will play a vital role in achieving a sustainable transportation system by reducing fossil fuel dependency and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, high level of EVs integration into the distribution grid has introduced many challenges for the power grid operation, safety, and network planning due to the increase in load demand, power quality impacts and power losses. An increasing fleet of electric mobility requires the advanced charging systems to enhance charging efficiency and utility grid support. Innovative EV charging technologies are obtaining much attention in recent research studies aimed at strengthening EV adoption while providing ancillary services. Therefore, analysis of the status of EV charging technologies is significant to accelerate EV adoption with advanced control strategies to discover a remedial solution for negative grid impacts, enhance desired charging efficiency and grid support. This paper presents a comprehensive review of the current deployment of EV charging systems, international standards, charging configurations, EV battery technologies, architecture of EV charging stations, and emerging technical challenges. The charging systems require a dedicated converter topology, a control strategy and international standards for charging and grid interconnection to ensure optimum operation and enhance grid support. An overview of different charging systems in terms of onboard and off-board chargers, AC-DC and DC-DC converter topologies, and AC and DC-based charging station architectures are evaluated

Low Voltage Regulator Modules and Single Stage Front-end Converters

Evolution in microprocessor technology poses new challenges for supplying power to these devices. To meet demands for faster and more efficient data processing, modem microprocessors are being designed with lower voltage implementations. More devices will be packed on a single processor chip and the processors will operate at higher frequencies, exceeding 1GHz. New high-performance microprocessors may require from 40 to 80 watts of power for the CPU alone. Load current must be supplied with up to 30A/µs slew rate while keeping the output voltage within tight regulation and response time tolerances. Therefore, special power supplies and Voltage Regulator Modules (VRMs) are needed to provide lower voltage with higher current and fast response. In the part one (chapter 2,3,4) of this dissertation, several low-voltage high-current VRM technologies are proposed for future generation microprocessors and ICs. The developed VRMs with these new technologies have advantages over conventional ones in terms of efficiency, transient response and cost. In most cases, the VRMs draw currents from DC bus for which front-end converters are used as a DC source. As the use of AC/DC frond-end converters continues to increase, more distorted mains current is drawn from the line, resulting in lower power factor and high total harmonic distortion. As a branch of active Power factor correction (PFC) techniques, the single-stage technique receives particular attention because of its low cost implementation. Moreover, with continuously demands for even higher power density, switching mode power supply operating at high-frequency is required because at high switching frequency, the size and weight of circuit components can be remarkably reduced. To boost the switching frequency, the soft-switching technique was introduced to alleviate the switching losses. The part two (chapter 5,6) of the dissertation presents several topologies for this front-end application. The design considerations, simulation results and experimental verification are discussed

Evaluation of a novel primary tapped transformer in a high frequency isolated power converter topology

Abstract The concept of primary tapped transformers is new in high frequency power electronic converters. This paper evaluates a new converter topology which has been developed to implement a high frequency primary tapped transformer. It is shown that this topology can maintain a load voltage for a much wider source voltage variation without major sacrifices in efficiency. The effect of efficiency with variation of source voltage and duty cycle as well as the power quality of the converter is analyzed experimentally. This new topology is evaluated in terms of complexity, capability, feasibility and reliability. The power quality aspects are also addressed. Possible end users of such a topology design are also taken into consideration

A survey on capacitor voltage control in neutral-point-clamped multilevel converters

Neutral-point-clamped multilevel converters are currently a suitable solution for a wide range of applications. It is well known that the capacitor voltage balance is a major issue for this topology. In this paper, a brief summary of the basic topologies, modulations, and features of neutral-point-clamped multilevel converters is presented, prior to a detailed description and analysis of the capacitor voltage balance behavior. Then, the most relevant methods to manage the capacitor voltage balance are presented and discussed, including operation in the overmodulation region, at low frequency-modulation indexes, with different numbers of AC phases, and with different numbers of levels. Both open- and closed-loop methods are discussed. Some methods based on adding external circuitry are also presented and analyzed. Although the focus of the paper is mainly DC–AC conversion, the techniques for capacitor voltage balance in DC–DC conversion are discussed as well. Finally, the paper concludes with some application examples benefiting from the presented techniques.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

A review on power electronics technologies for power quality improvement

Nowadays, new challenges arise relating to the compensation of power quality problems, where the introduction of innovative solutions based on power electronics is of paramount importance. The evolution from conventional electrical power grids to smart grids requires the use of a large number of power electronics converters, indispensable for the integration of key technologies, such as renewable energies, electric mobility and energy storage systems, which adds importance to power quality issues. Addressing these topics, this paper presents an extensive review on power electronics technologies applied to power quality improvement, highlighting, and explaining the main phenomena associated with the occurrence of power quality problems in smart grids, their cause and effects for different activity sectors, and the main power electronics topologies for each technological solution. More specifically, the paper presents a review and classification of the main power quality problems and the respective context with the standards, a review of power quality problems related to the power production from renewables, the contextualization with solid-state transformers, electric mobility and electrical railway systems, a review of power electronics solutions to compensate the main power quality problems, as well as power electronics solutions to guarantee high levels of power quality. Relevant experimental results and exemplificative developed power electronics prototypes are also presented throughout the paper.This work has been supported by FCT-Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the R&D Units Project Scope: UIDB/00319/2020. This work has been supported by the FCT Project DAIPESEV PTDC/EEI-EEE/30382/2017 and by the FCT Project newERA4GRIDs PTDC/EEIEEE/30283/2017

Dual active bridge converters in solid state transformers

This dissertation presents a comprehensive study of Dual Active Bridge (DAB) converters for Solid State Transformers (SSTs). The first contribution is to propose an ac-ac DAB converter as a single stage SST. The proposed converter topology consists of two active H-bridges and one high-frequency transformer. Output voltage can be regulated when input voltage changes by phase shift modulation. Power is transferred from the leading bridge to the lagging bridge. It analyzes the steady-state operation and the range of zero-voltage switching. It develops a switch commutation scheme for the ac-ac DAB converters. Simulation and experiment results of a scaled down prototype are provided to verify the theoretical analysis. The second contribution is to develop a full-order continuous-time average model for dc-dc DAB converters. The transformer current in DAB converter is purely ac, making continuous-time modeling difficult. Instead, the proposed approach uses the dc terms and 1st order terms of transformer current and capacitor voltage as state variables. Singular perturbation analysis is performed to find the sufficient conditions to separate the dynamics of transformer current and capacitor voltage. Experimental results confirm that the proposed model predicts the small-signal frequency response more accurately. The third contribution addresses the controller design of a dc-dc DAB converter when driving a single-phase dc-ac inverter. It studies the effect of 120 Hz current generated by the single-phase inverter. The limitation of PI-controller is investigated. Two methods are proposed to reduce the voltage ripple at the output voltage of DAB converter. The first method helps the feedback loop with feedforward from inverter, while the second one adds an additional resonance controller to the feedback loop. Theoretical analysis, simulation and experiment results are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed methods --Abstract, page iii

The presentation of sustainable power source assets in the field of intensity age assumes an imperative job

DC to DC converters to interface lesser-voltage higher-control supply to the essential stock shows the most raised proficiency was practiced in the full-connect converter. Non-separated converters bury unified inductor help converters with essential voltage gain and furthermore converters hold lesser profitability, yet they huge in structure, even the quantity of latent parts is diminished. In like manner gives proficient utilization of semiconductor switches, have higher voltage yield and are prepared to work in lesser estimation of D interestingly with every single disconnected converter. High addition topologies are regularly outfitted with high voltage security structures. Few non-disengaged topologies gives voltage hang security circuits are pointless since capacitive fragments and circuit plan are progressed to work under higher information voltage and low power. That requires lesser qualities for convincing RAC obstruction and entomb partnered inductance dispersal to achieve more prominent adequacy of intensity change. Larger supply current needs extensive region of core area inter allied inductors