• Energy Research

This paper proposes and discusses a novel AC/DC converter suitable for small-scaled wind power generation system applications. By introducing flyback cells into the three-phase single-switch Boost circuit, the proposed converter is designed as single-stage and has both rectification and high step-up power conversion functions. It is able to obtain high voltage gain at low input voltage level, and high efficiency, low total harmonic distortion (THD) at rated power. The inherent power factor correction (PFC) is also determined, and can reach 0.99. Besides, since no electrolytic capacitor is employed and high voltage gain is achieved, the converter can also collect weak power at low input voltage in combination with energy storage devices, and contribute to a better low-wind-speed/low-power performance. Finally, a 400 W prototype is built to verify the theoretical analysis, and its efficiency is 87.6%, while THD is 7.4% at rated power.

In this paper, an interleaved high-power zero-current-switching (ZCS) onboard charger (OBC) based on the three-phase single-switch buck rectifier is proposed for application to plug-in electric vehicles (EVs). The multi-resonant structure is used to achieve high efficiency and high power density, which are necessary to reduce the volume and weight of the OBC. This study focuses on the border conditions of ZCS converting with a battery load, which means the variation ranges of the output voltage and current are very large. Furthermore, a novel hybrid control method combining pulse frequency modulation (PFM) and pulse width modulation (PWM) together is presented to ensure a driving frequency higher than 10 kHz, and this will reduce the unexpected inner resonant power flow and decrease the total harmonic distortion (THD) of the input current under a light load at the end of the charging process. Finally, a prototype is established, and experiments are carried out. According to the experimental results, the conversion efficiency is higher than 93.5%, the THD about 4.3% and power factor (PF) 0.98 under the maximum power output condition. Besides, a three-stage charging process is also carried out the experimental platform.

A high frequency dual-buck full-bridge inverter for small power renewable energy application is proposed in this paper. A switching frequency of 400 kHz is achieved with the adoption of the SiC power device. A two-pole two-zero (2P2Z) compensator is employed in the outer voltage loop to generate the current reference for inner current loop. A 3P3Z compensator is adopted in the inner current loop to track the current reference. A systematic way for calculating the losses of high frequency inverter is presented, and the losses of the components are thoroughly analyzed. The turn-on and turn-off procedures of the inverter are discussed in detail. The losses caused by high frequency are calculated accurately, and the loss distribution is established as well. The procedure of the loss analysis gives a practical example for calculating the loss of similar type inverters. Moreover, deviation between pulse width modulation (PWM) control signal and switching response in high frequency switching is thoroughly analyzed. The influence of deviation is verified by designed experiment. Hence, a compensation method is proposed in order to minimize the influence. The compensation effect is validated by experiment and simulation. Finally, a 1-kW prototype is built to verify the feasibility of the theoretical analyses. The grid-connected maximum output power experiment is completed at 1 kW with the efficiency of 96.1% and the total harmonic distortion (THD) of 1.8%. The comparison experiments of power loss between Si and SiC power devices are carried out. The experiment results confirm the loss calculation method to be valid.

In this paper, an isolated multi-resonant three-port bidirectional direct current-direct current (DC-DC) converter is proposed, which is composed of three full bridges, two inductor-capacitor-inductor-capacitor (LCLC) multi-resonant tanks and a three-winding transformer. The phase shift control method is employed to manage the power transmission among three ports. Relying on the appropriate parameter selection, both of the fundamental and the third order power can be delivered through the multi-element LCLC resonant tanks, and consequently, it contributes to restrained circulating energy and the desirable promoted efficiency. Besides, by adjusting the driving frequency under different load conditions, zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) characteristics of all the switches of three ports are guaranteed. Therefore, lower switching loss and higher efficiency are achieved in full load range. In order to verify the feasibility of the proposed topology, a 1.5 kW prototype is established, of which the maximum efficiencies under forward and reverse operating conditions are 96.7% and 96.9% respectively. In addition, both of the bidirectional efficiencies maintain higher than 95.5% when the power level is above 0.5 kW.

In this paper, a two-stage three-port isolated bidirectional DC-DC converter (BDC) for hybrid energy storage system (HESS) applications in DC microgrids is proposed. It has an enlarged zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) region and reduced power circulation loss. A front-end three-phase interleaved BDC is introduced to the supercapacitor (SC) channel to compensate voltage variations of SC. Consequently, wide ZVS range and reduced circulation power loss for SC and DC bus ports are achieved under large-scale fluctuating SC voltage. Furthermore, a novel modified pulse-width-modulation (PWM) and phase-shift (PHS) hybrid control method with two phase-shift angles is proposed for BA port. And it contributes to an increasing number of switches operating in ZVS mode with varying battery (BA) voltage. Phase shift control with fixed driving frequency is applied to manage power flow. The ZVS range as well as the current stress of resonant tanks under varying port voltages is analyzed in detail. Finally, a 1 kW prototype with peak efficiency of 94.9% is built, and the theoretical analysis and control method are verified by experiments.

This study presents a four-phase interleaved high voltage conversion ratio bidirectional DC-DC converter circuit based on coupled inductors and switched capacitors, which can eliminate the defects of conventional high voltage conversion ratio bidirectional DC-DC converters in terms of high-voltage/current stress, less efficiency and low-power limitation. Parallel channels are used to reduce current stress at the low-voltage side and series connected switched capacitors are used to enlarge voltage conversion ratio, reduce voltage stress and achieve auto current sharing. This paper proposes the operation principle, feature analysis and optimization design considerations. On this basis the objectives of high voltage conversion ratio, low voltage/current stress, high power density, high efficiency and high-power applications can be achieved. Some experimental results based on a 500 W prototype converter (24 V to 48 V at low-voltage side, 400 V at high-voltage side) are given to verify the theoretical analysis and the effectiveness of the proposed converter.

In this paper, two multi-element resonant DC-DC converters are analyzed in detail. Since their resonant tanks have multiple resonant components, the converters display different resonant characteristics within different operating frequency ranges. Through appropriate design, both of the two proposed converters successfully lower the conversion losses and, meanwhile, broaden the voltage gain ranges as well: one converter is able to take full usage of the third order harmonic to deliver the active power, and thus the effective utilization rate of the resonant current is elevated; while the another minimizes the entire switching losses for power switching devices by restricting the input impedance angle of the resonant tank. Besides, the loss distribution is analyzed for the purpose of guiding the component design. In the end, two 500 W prototypes are fabricated to test the theoretical analyses. The results demonstrate that the two proposed converters can achieve wide voltage gain with the small frequency deviation, which noticeably contributes to highly efficient conversion. Their peak efficiencies are measured as 95.4% and 95.3%, respectively.