Vanadium redox flow batteries: Potentials and challenges of an emerging storage technology

open4noIn this paper an overview of Vanadium Redox Flow Battery technologies, architectures, applications and power electronic interfaces is given. These systems show promising features for energy storage in smart grid applications, where the intermittent power produced by renewable sources must meet strict load requests and economical opportunities. This paper reviews the vanadium-based technology for redox flow batteries and highlights its strengths and weaknesses, outlining the research lines that aim at taking it to full commercial success.openSpagnuolo, Giovanni, Guarnieri, Massimo; Mattavelli, Paolo; Petrone, Giovanni;Guarnieri, Massimo; Mattavelli, Paolo; Petrone, Giovanni; Spagnuolo, Giovann

FC/Battery Power Management for Electric Vehicle Based Interleaved DC-DC Boost Converter Topology

International audienceDue to the fact that the environmental issues have become more serious recently, interest in renewable energy systems, such as, fuel-cells (FCs) has increased steadfastly. Among many types of FCs, proton exchange membrane FC (PEMFC) is one of the most promising power sources due to its advantages, such as, low operation temperature, high power density and low emission. However, using only PEMFC for electric vehicle may not be feasible to satisfy the peak demand changes especially during accelerations and braking. So, hybridizing PEMFC and an energy storage system (ESS) decreases the FC cost and improves its performance and life. Battery (B) appears to be the most powerful candidate to hybridize with PEMFC for vehicular applications. Therefore, the performance of PEMFC/B hybridization is limited considerably by the performance of the converter. Thus, a suitable dc-dc converter topology is required. Various isolated and nonisolated converter topologies for FC applications have been proposed in literature. The objective of this study is to design and simulate a fuel cell - interleaved boost dc-dc converter (FC-IBC) for hybrid power systems in electric vehicle application, in order to decrease the FC current ripple. Therefore Energetic efficiency can also be improved. A control strategy capable of determining the desired FC power and keeps the dc voltage around its nominal value by supplying propulsion power and recuperating braking energy is designed and tested with an urbane electric vehicle model

An Improved MPPT Interleaved Boost Converter for Solar Electric Vehicle Application

International audienceAn interleaved boost dc/dc converter is developed featuring smaller input/output filters, faster dynamic response and lower device stress than conventional designs, for solar electric vehicle (SEV) applications. The converter is connected between the photovoltaic power generation and dc bus in a multisource energy storage system of a SEV. Typically, interleaved converters require a current control loop to reduce the input current ripples, the output voltage ripples, and the size of passive components with high efficiency. A Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) controller for a Photovoltaic (PV) solar system associated to backup source (Battery) guarantees an uninterrupted power supply and assist the propulsion of the vehicle during transients and recover energy during regenerative braking. The design, construction, and testing of an experimental hardware p rototype is presented, with the test results included

A single-phase bidirectional AC/DC converter for V2G applications

This paper presents a single-phase bidirectional current-source AC/DC converter for vehicle to grid (V2G) applications. The presented converter consists of a line frequency commutated unfolding bridge and an interleaved buck-boost stage. The low semiconductor losses of the line frequency commutated unfolding bridge contribute to the comparatively good efficiency of this converter. The buck and boost operating modes of the interleaved buck-boost stage provide operation over a wide battery voltage range. The interleaved structure of the interleaved buck-boost stage results in lower battery current ripple. In addition, sinusoidal input current, bidirectional power flow and reactive power compensation capability are also guaranteed. This paper presents the topology and operating principles of the presented converter. The feasibility of the converter is validated using MATLAB simulations, as well as experimental results

A New Combined Boost Converter with Improved Voltage Gain as a Battery-Powered Front-End Interface for Automotive Audio Amplifiers

High boost DC/DC voltage conversion is always indispensable in a power electronic interface of certain battery-powered electrical equipment. However, a conventional boost converter works for a wide duty cycle for such high voltage gain, which increases power consumption and has low reliability problems. In order to solve this issue, a new battery-powered combined boost converter with an interleaved structure consisting of two phases used in automotive audio amplifier is presented. The first phase uses a conventional boost converter; the second phase employs the inverted type. With this architecture, a higher boost voltage gain is able to be achieved. A derivation of the operating principles of the converter, analyses of its topology, as well as a closed-loop control designs are performed in this study. Furthermore, simulations and experiments are also performed using input voltage of 12 V for a 120Wcircuit. A reasonable duty cycle is selected to reach output voltage of 60 V, which corresponds to static voltage gain of five. The converter achieves a maximum measured conversion efficiency of 98.7% and the full load efficiency of 89.1%

Integrated CMOS Energy Harvesting Converter with Digital Maximum Power Point Tracking for a Portable Thermophotovoltaic Power Generator

This paper presents an integrated maximum power point tracking system for use with a thermophotovoltaic (TPV) portable power generator. The design, implemented in 0.35 μm CMOS technology, consists of a low-power control stage and a dc-dc boost power stage with soft-switching capability. With a nominal input voltage of 1 V, and an output voltage of 4 V, we demonstrate a peak conversion efficiency under nominal conditions of over 94% (overall peak efficiency over 95%), at a power level of 300 mW. The control stage uses lossless current sensing together with a custom low-power time-based ADC to minimize control losses. The converter employs a fully integrated digital implementation of a peak power tracking algorithm, and achieves a measured tracking efficiency above 98%. A detailed study of achievable efficiency versus inductor size is also presented, with calculated and measured results.Interconnect Focus Center (United States. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Semiconductor Research Corporation