Control and Hardware Solutions for DC-Grids Enabling Sustainable Expansion of Renewables

With increasing renewables connected to the grid new challenges and opportunities emerge.

While the inertia of the grid reduces, the number of power infeed’s and grid-connected converters with fast dynamics will increase. A likely scenario is that the increased connections will develop toward meshed DC grids. Such DC grids can have great potential in handling the characteristics of renewables.

However, the controllability of the power flow in meshed DC grids is very limited.

Therefore, the proposed project will investigate different possible power electronic hardware solutions and control methods which can be particularly suitable for meshed DC-grids. The proposed hardware solution will also be demonstrated experimentally with a down-scaled laboratory prototype.

The project contributes to an increased understanding of possible solution approaches for improved performance in meshed DC-grids, which can facilitate the development toward a grid with 100% renewables.