Georgios D. Demetriades

VSC-Based HVDC Power Transmission Systems: An Overview

The ever increasing progress of high-voltage high-power fully controlled semiconductor technology continues to have a significant impact on the development of advanced power electronic apparatus used to support optimized operations and efficient management of electrical grids, which, in many cases, are fully or partially deregulated networks. Developments advance both the HVDC power transmission and the flexible ac transmission system technologies. In this paper, an overview of the recent advances in the area of voltage-source converter (VSC) HVdc technology is provided. Selected key multilevel converter topologies are presented. Control and modeling methods are discussed. A list of VSC-based HVdc installations worldwide is included. It is confirmed that the continuous development of power electronics presents cost-effective opportunities for the utilities to exploit, and HVdc remains a key technology. In particular, VSC-HVdc can address not only conventional network issues such as bulk power transmission, asynchronous network interconnections, back-to-back ac system linking, and voltage/stability support to mention a few, but also niche markets such as the integration of large-scale renewable energy sources with the grid and most recently large onshore/offshore wind farms.

Modular Multilevel Converters for HVDC Applications: Review on Converter Cells and Functionalities

In this paper, the principle of modularity is used to derive the different multilevel voltage and current source converter topologies. The paper is primarily focused on high-power applications and specifically on high-voltage dc systems. The derived converter cells are treated as building blocks and are contributing to the modularity of the system. By combining the different building blocks, i.e., the converter cells, a variety of voltage and current source modular multilevel converter topologies are derived and thoroughly discussed. Furthermore, by applying the modularity principle at the system level, various types of high-power converters are introduced. The modularity of the multilevel converters is studied in depth, and the challenges as well as the opportunities for high-power applications are illustrated.

A Real-Time Thermal Model of a Permanent-Magnet Synchronous Motor

This paper presents a real-time thermal model with calculated parameters based on the geometry of the different components of a permanent-magnet synchronous motor. The model in state-space format has been discretized and a model-order reduction has been applied to minimize the complexity. The model has been implemented in a DSP and predicts the temperature of the different parts of the motor accurately in all operating conditions, i.e., steady-state, transient, and stall torque. The results have been compared with real measurements using temperature transducers showing very good performance of the proposed thermal model.

Recent Advances in High-Voltage Direct-Current Power Transmission Systems

The ever increasing progress of high-voltage high-power fully-controlled semiconductor technology continues to have a significant impact on the development of advanced power electronic apparatus used to support optimised operations and efficient management of electrical grids, which in many cases, are fully or partially deregulated networks. Developments advance both the high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) power transmission and the flexible alternating current transmission system (FACTS) technologies. In this paper, an overview of the recent advances in the area of voltage-source converter (VSC) HVDC technology is provided. Selected key multilevel converter topologies are presented. Control and modelling methods are discussed. A list of VSC-based HVDC installations worldwide is provided. It is confirmed that the continuous development of power electronics presents cost-effective opportunities for the utilities to exploit and HVDC remains a key technology. In particular, VSC-HVDC can address not only conventional network issues such as bulk power transmission, asynchronous network interconnections, back-to-back AC system linking and voltage/stability support to mention a few, but also niche markets such as the integration of large scale renewable energy sources with the grid.

A Low Complexity Control System for a Hybrid DC Power Source Based on Ultracapacitor–Lead–Acid Battery Configuration

A dc hybrid power source based on the combination of ultracapacitor and lead-acid battery is considered in this paper. The various control systems for such hybrid power source reported in the technical literature thus far are rather complex. A low complexity control system for such hybrid power source is proposed in this paper. The key feature of the proposed control system is its capability to maintain operation of the hybrid power source within all important operational limits. The proposed control system allows one to allocate the high-frequency current demands to the ultracapacitor and specify the current limits for both the battery and the ultracapacitor. It also maintains operation of the battery within its state of charge limits and the ultracapacitor voltage at a predefined value while charging the ultracapacitor from the battery rather than from the common dc bus. Presented experimental results verify the satisfactory operation of the power source utilizing the proposed control system.

Unified Distributed Control for DC Microgrid Operating Modes

This paper proposes a unified distributed control strategy for DC microgrid operating modes, without bus voltage signaling or mode detection mechanisms that are normally required for decentralized control strategies. The proposed control strategy is based on the novel integration of distributed controllers for energy balancing between DC microgrid energy storage systems with distributed controllers used to regulate the average DC microgrid bus voltage, and a new method for controlling the grid connected rectifier that maintains the distributed control structure. Under the proposed control strategy, seamless mode transitions are achieved between qualitatively different operating modes, namely, 1) grid connected operation with the rectifier providing load balancing, 2) grid connected operation with the rectifier charging the energy storage systems, and 3) islanded operation. In all operating modes, the average DC microgrid bus voltage is regulated to the microgrid voltage reference, and the energy storage systems are controlled independently of the operating mode to achieve and maintain a balanced energy level. Simulations are presented demonstrating the performance of the proposed control strategy for a 380 VDC datacenter with intermittent photovoltaic generation and communication delays expected from a WiFi control network implementation.

A Review of Power Electronics for Grid Connection of Utility-Scale Battery Energy Storage Systems

The increasing penetration of renewable energy sources (RES) poses a major challenge to the operation of the electricity grid owing to the intermittent nature of their power output. The ability of utility-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS) to provide grid support and smooth the output of RES in combination with their decrease in cost has fueled research interest in this technology over the last couple of years. Power electronics (PE) is the key enabling technology for connecting utility-scale BESS to the medium-voltage grid. PE ensure energy is delivered while complying with grid codes and dispatch orders. Simultaneously, the PE must regulate the operating point of the batteries, thus for instance preventing overcharge of batteries. This paper presents a comprehensive review of PE topologies for utility BESS that have been proposed either within industry or the academic literature. Moreover, a comparison of the presently most commercially viable topologies is conducted in terms of estimated power conversion efficiency and relative cost.

Supercapacitor Sizing Method for Energy-Controlled Filter-Based Hybrid Energy Storage Systems

Filter-based battery-supercapacitor hybrid energy storage systems (HESSs) are popular as a way of extending battery lifetime by diverging the high-frequency power variations to the supercapacitor. However, when a traditional supercapacitor voltage controller (SCVC) is employed in the filter-based HESS, precise sizing of the supercapacitor as well as finding filter parameters for the power allocation are challenging due to nonlinearities. These problems can be circumvented by using a supercapacitor energy controller (SCEC) proposed in this paper. The paper presents a method for selection of the SCEC and filter parameters as well as precise sizing of the supercapacitor for a given application. The proposed method is experimentally verified on a single-phase grid-connected HESS used to smooth the power delivered to the grid at the point of common coupling. It is also shown that the size of the supercapacitor when using the SCEC is significantly lower than the one estimated for the traditional SCVC.

Cooperative control of DC microgrid storage for energy balancing and equal power sharing

This paper proposes a distributed multi-agent cooperative control system for dynamic energy balancing between storage devices in droop controlled DC microgrids. With the traditional droop control strategy, line resistances between DC microgrid energy storage devices and loads will cause unequal power sharing. The proposed control system modifies the output power of the droop controlled storage devices so that they reach a balanced energy level. Once a balanced energy level has been reached, the cooperative control system maintains equal power sharing between the storage devices. This ensures that the storage devices will not prematurely run out of energy, so their full output power capacity is available to regulate the microgrid voltage. Simulations have been completed showing that the cooperative control system is able to maintain voltage regulation in situations for which the traditional droop control fails.

Heuristic Model Predictive Modulation for High-Power Cascaded Multilevel Converters

Phase-shifted carrier modulation is an industry standard in its application to multilevel H-bridge converters. The major advantage of this scheme over level-shifted and space vector modulation schemes is its inherent ability to evenly distribute losses between semiconductor devices. However, phase-shifted schemes suffer from harmonic degradation when operated at the low carrier frequencies required in high-power high-level number applications. This paper develops a model predictive modulation (MPM) scheme that achieves superior harmonic performance, compared to phase-shifted modulation, while ensuring equal semiconductor loss distribution. With respect to complete-enumeration-based predictive techniques, the proposed modulation significantly reduces the number of times the system cost function is evaluated. Reducing the number of calculations by several orders of magnitude ensures computational feasibility. Simulation and experimental results are presented, which confirm correct operation of the modulation strategy.