B. G. Fernandes

Distributed Control to Ensure Proportional Load Sharing and Improve Voltage Regulation in Low-Voltage DC Microgrids

DC microgrids are gaining popularity due to high efficiency, high reliability, and easy interconnection of renewable sources as compared to the ac system. Control objectives of dc microgrid are: 1) to ensure equal load sharing (in per unit) among sources; and 2) to maintain low-voltage regulation of the system. Conventional droop controllers are not effective in achieving both the aforementioned objectives simultaneously. Reasons for this are identified to be the error in nominal voltages and load distribution. Though centralized controller achieves these objectives, it requires high-speed communication and offers less reliability due to single point of failure. To address these limitations, this paper proposes a new decentralized controller for dc microgrid. Key advantages are high reliability, low-voltage regulation, and equal load sharing, utilizing low-bandwidth communication. To evaluate the dynamic performance, mathematical model of the scheme is derived. Stability of the system is evaluated by eigenvalue analysis. The effectiveness of the scheme is verified through a detailed simulation study. To confirm the viability of the scheme, experimental studies are carried out on a laboratory prototype developed for this purpose. Controller area network protocol is utilized to achieve communication between the sources.

Reduced-Order Model and Stability Analysis of Low-Voltage DC Microgrid

Depleting fossil fuels, increasing energy demand, and need for high-reliability power supply motivate the use of dc microgrids. This paper analyzes the stability of low-voltage dc microgrid systems. Sources are controlled using a droop-based decentralized controller. Various components of the system have been modeled. A linearized system model is derived using small-signal approximation. The stability of the system is analyzed by identifying the eigenvalues of the system matrix. The sufficiency condition for stable operation of the system is derived. It provides upper bound on droop constants and is useful during planning and designing of dc microgrids. Furthermore, the sensitivity of system poles to variation in cable resistance and inductance is identified. It is proved that the poles move further inside the negative real plane with a decrease in inductance or an increase in resistance. The method proposed in this paper is applicable to any interconnecting structure of sources and loads. The results obtained by analysis are verified by detailed simulation study. Root locus plots are included to confirm the movement of system poles. The viability of the model is confirmed by experimental results from a scaled-down laboratory prototype of a dc microgrid developed for the purpose.

An instantaneous reactive volt-ampere compensator and harmonic suppressor system

A novel control method for a reactive volt-ampere compensator and harmonic suppressor system is proposed. It operates without sensing the reactive volt-ampere demand and nonlinearities present in the load. The compensation process is instantaneous, which is achieved without employing any complicated and involved control logic. The compensator is operated in cycle-by-cycle reference-current-controlled mode to achieve the instantaneous compensating feature. A mathematical model of the scheme is developed. Detailed analysis and simulation results are presented. A laboratory prototype of the compensator is developed to validate the results.

Optimal voltage level for DC microgrids

Depleting fossil fuels, increasing energy demand and concern over climate change due to CO2 emission motivate the use of renewable sources. However, supplying electronics, variable speed drives and LED loads from renewable sources requires multiple ac-dc and dc-ac conversions. This causes substantial energy wastage before end use. To address this limitation, dc system is suggested, which offers high efficiency and reliability with low system cost. In this paper, suitable power electronic interfaces for sources/loads/storage elements are discussed along with their performance requirements. Further, efficiency, cost and safety issues of the dc system with various voltage levels are compared. With suitable case studies, optimal dc voltage level is determined for residential and commercial application. The proposed dc system with this optimum voltage level offers 10–22% improvement in energy efficiency over the conventional ac system.

A simple maximum power point tracker for grid connected variable speed wind energy conversion system with reduced switch count power converters

In this paper, a simple control strategy for an optimal extraction of output power from grid connected variable speed wind energy conversion system (VSWECS) with reduced switch count power converters is presented. In order to improve the overall efficiency and to reduce the cost, B-4 PWM converters are used. The system consists of a variable speed wind turbine coupled to a permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) through a gear box, two PWM B4-power converters. Output power from PMSG is first converted into DC and then it is fed to the grid. Both the power conversions are performed at unity power factor and the DC link voltage is maintained constant. The MPPT extracts optimum power from the wind turbine from cut-in to rated wind velocity by sensing only the turbine output power. The complete system has been simulated for various wind velocities. The control algorithm is implemented on TMS320F243 DSP and the simulated results are validated by experimental results.

A High-Torque-Density Permanent-Magnet Free Motor for in-Wheel Electric Vehicle Application

A motor for in-wheel electric vehicle (EV) requires high efficiency and specific torque. In view of this, permanent-magnet brushless dc (PM BLDC) motor is most commonly employed for this application. However, due to the increasing cost of PMs, machines that do not use PMs are attracting interest. Switched reluctance motor (SRM), with its simple and robust construction, along with fault tolerant operation, is a viable option for in-wheel EV application. However, the SRM has low specific torque as compared with BLDC. Therefore, design improvements are required to make SRM a viable alternative to BLDC motor. In this paper, a new 12/26 pole SRM with high specific torque is proposed for in-wheel EV application. This machine has segmented-rotor-type construction. Also, concentrated-winding arrangement is used, ensuring low end-winding volume and copper loss. The developed machine also has high efficiency. In order to verify the design, the prototype of the machine is fabricated, and experimental results are presented.

Axial Flux Segmented SRM With a Higher Number of Rotor Segments for Electric Vehicles

Motors for in-wheel electric vehicle application should have high specific torque. In addition, these motors should be rugged, insensitive to vibration, and temperature variation. Therefore, segmented rotor switched reluctance motor (SSRM) could be an attractive alternative to permanent magnet-based motors, which are being used for this application. A limitation of SSRM is that it requires full pitch winding for its operation. Since, in-wheel motors have high diameter to axial length (D/L) ratio, SSRM of these dimensions would be bulky and has high copper loss due to full pitch winding. Hence, in this paper, a novel SSRM with nonoverlapping winding is proposed. This motor is an axial flux SSRM (AFSSRM) with toroidal winding arrangement. It has single-stator, dual-rotor configuration with 12 stator poles and 16 rotor segments on each rotor disc. Design procedure for AFSSRM is developed and a flowchart describing the design algorithm is presented. A finite element method-based simulation is carried out to verify the performance of the proposed AFSSRM. In order to validate the performance of the motor, a prototype is fabricated and experimental results are presented.

Modified One-Cycle Controlled Bidirectional High-Power-Factor AC-to-DC Converter

AC-to-DC converters based on one-cycle control exhibit instability in current control at light load conditions as well as when they are operating in the inverting mode. In this paper, a modified one-cycle controller for bidirectional AC-to-DC converter is proposed. A fictitious current component in phase with the utility voltage is synthesized. The sum of this current component and the actual load current is compared with the sawtooth waveform to generate the gating pulses for the switches. This modification not only renders stability to the converter at light load conditions and the inverting mode of operations but also enables the converter to seamlessly transfer its operation from the rectifying mode to the inverting mode and vice versa. Detailed simulation studies are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. To validate the viability of the scheme, detailed experimental studies are carried out on a 2-kW laboratory prototype.

Transformer-Less Grid Feeding Current Source Inverter for Solar Photovoltaic System

High efficiency and operating life of grid feeding solar photovoltaic (PV) inverters are demanded. Due to reduced dc-link capacitor requirement, current source inverter (CSI) offers higher reliability than the voltage source based solar inverter. However, conventional three-phase pulse width modulated (PWM) current source based solar inverter injects high earth leakage current into the grid. In order to suppress this current, an isolation transformer can be used. Use of this transformer increases the cost and size, and decreases overall efficiency. In order to address the aforementioned limitations, a modified CSI is proposed in this paper. The proposed inverter suppresses the earth leakage current without using an isolation transformer, thereby increasing the efficiency and reducing cost as compared to conventional current source based solar inverters. A mathematical model of the system is derived based on which controller for the operation of the inverter is designed. The effectiveness of the scheme is verified through detailed simulation study. To confirm the viability of the scheme, experimental studies are carried out on a scaled-down laboratory prototype.

Three-Phase Three Level, Soft Switched, Phase Shifted PWM DC–DC Converter for High Power Applications

A new three-phase, three-level dc to dc phase shifted pulsewidth modulation (PWM) converter is proposed for high power and high input voltage applications. Output voltage is controlled by incorporating phase shift PWM. Clocked gate signals of each leg are phase shifted by 2pi/3 from each other. Major features of the converter include: (1) outer two switches of each leg are turned on and off as zero voltage switching, (2) inner two switches of each leg are turned on and off as zero current switching, and (3) this is achieved without involving any extra passive or active components. The secondary side of the converter is of center tapped full-wave current tripler type. This results in an increase of ripple frequency by a factor of six, leading to a significant reduction in size of the output filter. In order to obtain behavioral and performance characteristics of the proposed converter topology, detailed analytical and simulation studies are carried out. Finally the viability of the scheme is confirmed through detailed experimental studies on a laboratory prototype developed for the purpose.