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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - RDC2MT (Research, Demonstration, and Commercialisation of DC Microgrid Technologies)

Teaser

Summary

Research, Demonstration and Commercialisation of DC microgrid Technologies (RDC2MT) project aims to address new challenges of direct current (DC) microgrids in the applications of DC powered houses and DC distribution networks through collaboration research.

According to the history perspective, Alternating Current (AC) power supply system has been the standard choice. However, with the development of power electronics technologies and distributed energy source and storage, DC power supply systems have gained a continually increasing interest in the last several years. Compared with conventional AC systems, DC systems have the advantages of higher reliability and efficiency, simpler control, and natural interface to increased numbers of DC renewable generation, energy storage and electrics loads. It will one of the attractive solutions support the EUâ€™s climate goals (European Commission 2015), and resource-efficiency strategy (European Commission 2011).

The project has the following objectives:
1. To optimize the fuel cell design, and study the feasibility of integrating fuel cell Combined Heat and Power (CHP) in high efficiency DC house application
2. To develop novel power electronics converters with integrated communication, stabilisation and battery management for DC microgrid applications
3. To develop advanced control and optimisation strategy for DC microgrids in the applications of DC powered house and community.
4. To demonstrate and evaluate project findings on DC demonstration sites within the consortium, which includes two new DC microgrid demonstration sites within an EU funded project that will be coupled to the RDC2MT program.
5. To assess the commercial potentials of latest project findings.
6. To strengthen the inter-sectoral and international relationship and enhance early career researcher interdisciplinary skills and international experience through gaining new knowledge, expertise and techniques in individuals and the collaboration partners.
7. To disseminate project innovations with strong low carbon impact to Europe and worldwide.

Work performed

\"From 1st Feb 2017 to 31st Jan 2019, 30 person-months secondments have been implemented, and the project has achieved following main technical results:

1. Communication/signalling through common DC bus, and three papers have been published;

2. Techno-economic feasibility study of a hybrid off-grid DC system for combined heat and power generation and hydrogen storage in remote islands. One paper has been published;

3. Modelling and stability of DC distribution systems, four papers have been published/accepted;

4. Photovoltaic system maximum point tracking and its impact to DC microgrids, 2 papers have been published;

5. Energy routing optimisation for a DC load area network, one paper has been published;

6. A novel local Peer-to-Peer (P2P) energy transaction framework, and one paper has been published;

In the first year of the project, one project deliverable \"\"ESR Industrial training\"\" has been completed, 6 early stage researchers (ESRs) completed 8 person-months in total secondments with project industrial partner DCBV, and gained industrial experience by work on industrial environment.
30th April 2017, the project website www.rdc2mt.org has been released.
5th and 6th September 2017 The first RDC2MT project annual meeting and workshop was held in TU Delft.
March 2018: Our Chinese partners have successfully secured a match funding from Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST). The project is entitled â€œPlug-and-Play Operational Principle and Applications of Structured DC Microgridâ€. The total project budget is 3.95 million CNY (equivalent to 500k+ EURs), and the project period is 3 years from April 2018.
April 2018: RDC2MT Project 1st year progress report (deliverable 4.1) was approved.
7th June 2018: The second RDC2MT project workshop and 1st ESR poster competition was held in TU Delft.
8th June 2018: The RDC2MT project mid-term meeting was held in TU Delft.
November 2018: The third RDC2MT project workshop and project meeting were held in Zhejiang University, China\"

Final results

DC microgrid technologies have been applied to data centres, electric vehicle power systems, and telecommunications. A number of applications of DC microgrid in future smart grid scenario have been proposed, which includes high efficiency households, renewable energy parks, and hybrid energy storage systems, etc. However, most of the DC microgrid researches are still simulation-based.

Based on the unique expertise and world class facilities of the consortium, RDC2MT project will focus on five cutting-edge research challenges.

In DC microgrids, power electronics converters are crucial components. RDC2MT project will work on integrating communication into power electronics converters. Prototypes of 1kW modular DC/DC converter with integrated communication function will be designed and implemented by the end of the project.

Battery state of charge (SoC) and state of health (SoH) estimations are still open research topics, and many different methods have been proposed. In RDC2MT project, we are aiming to aim to implement an on-line Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy technique to estimate the SoC and SoH of batteries.

Fuel cell for household applications is a new market, and can make a fundamental shift in the sourcing of energy. In RDC2MT project, research work will be performed to develop, understand and optimize a microscale fuel cell system for high efficiency DC house.

For DC microgrids, power electronics converters provide many flexible functions, but also introduce more complex and fast internal dynamics. In RDC2MT project, we will develop systematic theories and tools for stability analysis and design of power-electronics-based DC microgrid systems.

The research on the coordinated control of DC microgrids with multiple power converters is still quite early stage. In RDC2MT project, different optimisation strategies will be studied for the optimal operation of DC microgrids in DC house/building applications.

Potential impact:
Based on the EU energy sector economic analysis, the energy sector directly employs about 1.6 million people in the EU, and generates an added â‚¬250 billion to the economy. The EU has also endorsed ambitious greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction targets and associated targets for the decarbonisation of the energy sectors. RDC2MT project will produce a direct impact on this by the development of a cost-effectiveness strategy to integrate renewable energy sources and energy storages into the European household energy sector, which will result in less greenhouse gas emissions.