Chern-Lin Chen

Branch-and-bound scheduling for thermal generating units

A branch-and-bound method for scheduling thermal generating units is presented. The decision variables are the start and stop times and the generation levels of the units. A simple rule is defined to compute the lower bound of each candidate schedule for interim computation usage, and the branching process takes place on the subschedule with the lowest lower bound. The heap data storage structure and space saving encoded data representations for partially fulfilled unit commitment schedules are utilized to facilitate the branch-and-bound procedure. By successive branching and bounding, the unit commitment schedule with the minimum cost can be obtained. Two examples, a 10 unit, 24 h and a 20 unit, 36 h case, are shown to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. >

Automatic phase-shift method for islanding detection of grid-connected photovoltaic inverters

The traditional frequency-shift methods for islanding detection of grid connected PV inverters (the active frequency-drift method and the slip mode frequency-shift method) become ineffective under certain paralleled RLC loads. The automatic phase-shift method is proposed in this paper to alleviate this problem. The method is based on the phase shift of the sinusoidal inverter output current. When the utility malfunctions, the phase-shift algorithm keeps the frequency of the inverter terminal voltage deviating until the protection circuit is triggered. Simulation and experiments are performed for verification.

Novel ZVT-PWM converters with active snubbers

An active snubber cell is proposed to contrive zero-voltage-transition (ZVT) pulsewidth-modulated (ZVT-PWM) converters. Except for the auxiliary switch, all active and passive semiconductor devices in a ZVT-PWM converter operate at zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) turn on and turn off. The auxiliary switch operates at ZVS turn off and near zero current-switching (ZCS) turn on. An analytical study on a boost ZVT-PWM converter with the proposed active snubber cell is presented in detail. A 750 W 80 kHz prototype of the boost ZVT-PWM converter has been built in the laboratory to experimentally verify the analysis. Six basic ZVT-PWM converters can be easily created by attaching the proposed active snubber cells to conventional PWM converters. A detailed design procedure of the proposed active snubber cell is also presented in this paper.

A Novel Single-Stage High-Power-Factor AC-to-DC LED Driving Circuit With Leakage Inductance Energy Recycling

This paper proposes a novel single-stage ac-to-dc light-emitting-diode (LED) driver circuit. A buck-boost power factor (PF) corrector is integrated with a flyback converter. A recycling path is built to recover the inductive leakage energy. In this way, the presented circuit can provide not only high PF and low total harmonic distortion but also high conversion efficiency and low switching voltage spikes. Above 0.95 PF and 90% efficiency are obtained from an 8-W LED lamp driver prototype.

A Novel Primary-Side Regulation Scheme for Single-Stage High-Power-Factor AC–DC LED Driving Circuit

This paper integrates a novel primary-side regulation (PSR) scheme with a single-stage high-power-factor (PF) ac-dc light-emitting-diode (LED) driving circuit. The driving circuit is based on the combination of a buck-boost PF corrector and a flyback converter. The component amount, cost, and size can be significantly reduced by replacing the secondary-side regulation with the PSR. In this way, not only high performance but also low cost and small system size can be achieved. Above 0.97 PF and 82% efficiency are obtained from a 12-W (60 W replaced) LED bulb driver prototype.

A novel ZVT PWM Cuk power-factor corrector

A novel zero-voltage-transition (ZVT) pulsewidth modulated (PWM) Cuk power-factor corrector (PFC) is proposed to achieve unity power factor under zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) operations. In the proposed ZVT PWM Cuk PFC, not only the power switch, but also the power diode, commutate under ZVS. The proposed topology has the shortest ZVT time and, thus, the shortest minimum duty cycle compared with other ZVT PWM topologies. The resonant inductor can be discharged regardless of the state of the main switch. Extremely short ZVT time and robust discharge of the resonant inductor make the proposed topology well qualified for variable-duty and high switching-frequency applications. Analytical studies, design rules, and experimental waveforms of the ZVT PWM Cuk PFC are presented in detail.

A passive lossless snubber cell for nonisolated PWM DC/DC converters

A passive lossless snubber cell is proposed to improve the turn-on and turnoff transients of the MOSFETs in nonisolated pulsewidth modulated (PWM) DC/DC converters. Switching losses and EMI noise are reduced by restricting di/dt of the reverse-recovery current and dv/dt of the drain-source voltage. The MOSFET operates at zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) turnoff and near zero-current-switching (ZCS) turn-on. The freewheeling diode is also commutated under ZVS. As an example, operation principles, theoretical analysis, relevant equations, and experimental results of a boost converter equipped with the proposed snubber cell are presented in detail. Efficiency of 96% has also been measured in the experimental results reported for a 1 kW 100 kHz prototype in the laboratory, Six basic nonisolated PWM DC/DC converters (buck, boost, buck-boost, Cuk, Sepic, and Zeta) equipped with the proposed general snubber cells are also shown in this paper.

Regenerative power electronics driver for plasma display panel in sustain-mode operation

A regenerative power electronic circuit is proposed to drive a plasma display panel (PDP) in sustain-mode operation. This driver utilizes inductors to resonate with the equivalent intrinsic capacitance of the PDP to avoid the abrupt charging/discharging operation. The energy losses due to conventional hardswitching driving and the displacement current of the PDP are mainly recovered. Compared with prior approaches, this driving circuit has a quite simple structure and is suitable for asymmetrical operation.

Analysis and Design of Single-Stage AC/DC

Analysis and design of a single-stage LLC resonant converter are proposed. A single-stage converter uses only one control signal to drive two power converters, a power factor corrector (PFC) converter and a dc/dc converter, for reducing the cost of the system. However, this simplicity induces power imbalance between two converters, and then, the bus voltage between two converters drifts and becomes unpredictable. To ensure that the bus capacitor voltage can be kept in a tolerable region, the characteristics of a PFC converter and an LLC tank are investigated, and then, a design procedure is proposed correspondingly. Finally, a single-stage LLC resonant converter is implemented to verify the analysis.

LLC

A novel energy-recovery driver is proposed to drive a plasma display panel (PDP) in the sustaining operation. The proposed circuit uses the parallel resonance between the inductor and the intrinsic capacitance of PDP to mainly recover the energy lost by the capacitive displacement current of the PDP. The parasitic resonance caused by the parasitic inductance and the stray capacitance is prevented greatly. A 34-in AC PDP equipped with the proposed driving circuit, operated at 100 kHz, is investigated. In addition, some prior work is shown in this paper for comparison, in which the power consumption of driving the same 34-in panel is measured. The experimental results show that the proposed driver has a low-cost structure and better performance than the prior ones.