Browsing by Subject "photovoltaic"
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Item Fault-tolerant Partial-resonant High-frequency AC-link Converters and Their Applications(2014-01-08) Keyhani, HamidrezaRecently, the demand for high-power-density converters with high efficiency and enhanced reliability has increased considerably. To address this demand, this dissertation introduces several low, medium, and high power converter topologies with high-frequency ac links and soft-switching operation, both with and without galvanic isolation. These converters can be in ac-ac, dc-ac, ac-dc, or dc-dc configurations to transfer power from the utility, energy storage systems, or renewable/alternative energy sources (e.g., photovoltaics, wind, and fuel cells) to stand-alone loads or the utility. The advantages of these topologies include soft switching at turn-on and turn-off of all the semiconductor devices, exclusion of short-life electrolytic capacitors in the link, step-up/down capability, and the use of a smallsized high-frequency transformer for galvanic isolation. The proposed converters are also able to generate output waveforms with arbitrary amplitude and frequency as well as achieving a high input power factor in the ac-ac and ac-dc configurations. Moreover, some of the introduced topologies have fault-tolerance capability, which may allow the converter to run even with one or more faulty switches. In this case, a partial failure will not result in the converter shutdown, and thus system availability is improved. The high-frequency ac link of the introduced converters is composed of an ac inductor and small ac capacitor. The link inductor is responsible for transferring power, while the link capacitor realizes soft-switching operation. As the link components have low reactive ratings, the converters exhibit fast dynamic responses. The inductor can be replaced by an air-gapped high-frequency transformer to achieve galvanic isolation without the need for any snubber circuits. Due to operation at a high frequency, the link transformer is substantially smaller in size and lower in weight compared to conventional line-frequency isolation transformers. In this work, the proposed power topologies are explained in detail, and their comprehensive analyses are given to reveal their functioning behavior in various working conditions. Simulation and experimental results at different operating points are also presented to verify the effectiveness of the introduced power converters.Item Multilevel Converter Topologies for Utility Scale Solar Photovoltaic Power Systems(2014-04-30) Essakiappan, SomasundaramRenewable energy technologies have been growing in their installed capacity rapidly over the past few years. This growth in solar, wind and other technologies is fueled by state incentives, renewable energy mandates, increased fossil fuel prices and environmental consciousness. Utility scale systems form a substantial portion of electricity capacity addition in modern times. This sets the stage for research activity to explore new efficient, compact and alternative power electronic topologies to integrate sources like photovoltaics (PV) to the utility grid, some of which are multilevel topologies. Multilevel topologies allow for use of lower voltage semiconductor devices than two-level converters. They also produce lower distortion output voltage waveforms. This dissertation proposes a cascaded multilevel converter with medium frequency AC link which reduces the size of DC bus capacitor and also eliminates power imbalance between the three phases. A control strategy which modulates the output voltage magnitude and phase angle of the inverter cells is proposed. This improves differential power processing amongst cells while keeping the voltage and current ratings of the devices low. A battery energy storage system for the multilevel PV converter has also been proposed. Renewable technologies such as PV and wind suffer from varying degrees of intermittency, depending on the geographical location. With increased installation of these sources, management of intermittency is critical to the stability of the grid. The proposed battery system is rated at 10% of the plant it is designed to support. Energy is stored and extracted by means of a bidirectional DC-DC converter connected to the PV DC bus. Different battery chemistries available for this application are also discussed. In this dissertation, the analyses of common mode voltages and currents in various PV topologies are detailed. The grid integration of PV power employs a combination of pulse width modulation (PWM) DC-DC converters and inverters. Due to their fast switching nature a common mode voltage is generated with respect to the ground, inducing a circulating current through the ground capacitance. Common mode voltages lead to increased voltage stress, electromagnetic interference and malfunctioning of ground fault protection systems. Common mode voltages and currents present in high and low power PV systems are analyzed and mitigation strategies such as common mode filter and transformer shielding are proposed to minimize them.Item Synthesis of Titanium Dioxide Hetero-Structures for Photovoltaic Energy Conversion(2010-10-12) Park, JongbokThe photovoltaic energy conversion system (PV cells or solar cells) has been researched over the last few decades, and new technologies have been proposed. At the same time, the synthesis of nano-scale materials has been investigated intensively from the 1990s. These new types of materials encourage the development of new PV technologies with extensive research. Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) can be a part of these efforts. Since first presented in 1991, DSSCs have become the center of attention due to their great advantages to the traditional silicon solar cells. However, it remains a challenge to develop better performing DSSCs since the efficiency of DSSCs is still much lower than that of high performance solar cells. To meet this challenge, the different types of TiO2 nanostructures in DSSCs have been studied. This thesis presents the synthesis of TiO2 hetero-structures. These structures can achieve two important factors in DSSCs. One is the electron pathway for high electron transport rate, and the other is the large surface area for the dye absorption. TiO2 hetero-structures were successfully synthesized by using a simple thermal annealing method. The synthesis method required neither a high reaction temperature nor complicated reaction processes and produced dense TiO2 nanowires and incorporating TiO2 nanoparticles with relatively short reaction time. The key parameters of growing 1-D TiO2 nanostructures were the Cu eutectic catalyst, the reaction temperatures, and the annealing time. The repetition time and the reaction temperatures were important factors for incorporating TiO2 nanoparticles. The structure and composition of as-grown samples were analyzed using an x-ray diffractometer, a scanning electron microscope, a field emission scanning electron microscope, a transmission electron microscope and an ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy. The results showed they were crystalline structures in rutile phase of TiO2. From this research, we can utilize hetero-structures as an electrode of DSSCs. We also expect that our simple and effective synthesis method can be used for growing other kinds of metal oxide nanostructures, especially for those melting temperature are high.