• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제15권3호
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• pp.587-601
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• 2015

A high step-up dc-dc converter is proposed for photovoltaic power systems in this paper. The proposed converter consists of an input current doubler, a symmetrical switched-capacitor doubler and an active-clamp circuit. The input current doubler minimizes the input current ripple. The symmetrical switched-capacitor doubler is composed of two symmetrical quasi-resonant switched-capacitor circuits, which share the leakage inductance of the transformer as a resonant inductor. The rectifier diodes (switched-capacitor circuit) are turned off at the zero current switching (ZCS) condition, so that the reverse-recovery problem of the diodes is removed. In addition, the symmetrical structure results in an output voltage ripple reduction because the voltage ripples of the charge/pump capacitors cancel each other out. Meanwhile, the voltage stress of the rectifier diodes is clamped at half of the output voltage. In addition, the active-clamp circuit clamps the voltage surges of the switches and recycles the energy of the transformer leakage inductance. Furthermore, pulse-width modulation plus phase angle shift (PPAS) is employed to control the output voltage. The operation principle of the converter is analyzed and experimental results obtained from a 400W prototype are presented to validate the performance of the proposed converter.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제16권4호
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• pp.1565-1577
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• 2016

For grid-connected LCL-filtered inverters, dual-loop current control with an inner-loop active damping (AD) based on capacitor current feedback is generally used for the sake of current quality. However, existing studies on capacitor current feedback AD with a control delay do not reveal the mathematical relation among the dual-loop stability, capacitor current feedback factor, delay time and LCL parameters. The robustness was not investigated through mathematical derivations. Thus, this paper aims to provide a systematic study of dual-loop current control in a digitally-controlled inverter. At first, the stable region of the inner-loop AD is derived. Then, the dual-loop stability and robustness are analyzed by mathematical derivations when the inner-loop AD is stable and unstable. Robust design principles for the inner-loop AD feedback factor and the outer-loop current controller are derived. Most importantly, ensuring the stability of the inner-loop AD is critical for achieving high robustness against a large grid impedance. Then, several improved approaches are proposed and synthesized. The limitations and benefits of all of the approaches are identified to help engineers apply capacitor current feedback AD in practice.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제18권5호
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• pp.1555-1566
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• 2018

Proportional capacitor-current-feedback active damping (AD) is a common damping method for the resonance of LCL-type grid-connected inverters. Proportional capacitor-current-feedback AD behaves as a virtual resistor in parallel with the capacitor. However, the existence of delay in the actual control system causes impedance in the virtual resistor. Impedance is manifested as negative resistance when the resonance frequency exceeds one-sixth of the sampling frequency ($f_s/6$). As a result, the damping effect disappears. To extend the system damping region, this study proposes a virtual resistor-inductor-capacitor (RLC) AD method. The method is implemented by feeding the filter capacitor current passing through a band-pass filter, which functions as a virtual RLC in parallel with the filter capacitor to achieve positive resistance in a wide resonance frequency range. A combination of Nyquist theory and system close-loop pole-zero diagrams is used for damping parameter design to obtain optimal damping parameters. An experiment is performed with a 10 kW grid-connected inverter. The effectiveness of the proposed AD method and the system's robustness against grid impedance variation are demonstrated.

• 반도체디스플레이기술학회지
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• 제17권4호
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• pp.56-61
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• 2018

In this paper, a new type of active snubber was proposed to lower the excessive rated voltage of the clamp capacitor which was a problem in the conventional circuit by applying auxiliary winding into the active snubber. A simplified equivalent circuit of the proposed snubber was derived by applying it to QR flyback converter, and the equivalent circuits for each switch state was shown under the steady-state condition. In addition, the maximum voltage of the clamp capacitor as well as the main switch was found by using the steady-state equations. In particular, it was found that the clamp capacitor voltage could be controlled by the auxiliary winding ratio. In order to verify the utility and practicality of the proposed converter with auxiliary winding type active snubber circuit, a prototype with an output voltage of 19V and a maximum load current of 6A was produced and the results were reported.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• 제11권4호
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• pp.921-930
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• 2016

This paper proposes a design and control method for a high-voltage direction current modular multilevel converter (HVDC-MMC) considering the capacitor voltage ripple of the submodule (SM). The capacitor voltage ripple consists of the line frequency and double-line-frequency components. The double line- frequency component does not fluctuate according to the active power, whereas the line-frequency component is highly influenced by the grid-side voltage and current. If the grid voltage drops, a conventional converter increases the current to maintain the active power. A grid voltage drops, current increment, or both occur with a capacitor voltage ripple higher than the limit value. In order to reliably control an MMC within a limit value, the SM capacitor should be designed on the basis of the capacitor voltage ripple. In this paper, the capacitor voltage ripple according to the grid voltage and current are analyzed, and the proposed control method includes a current limitation method considering the capacitor voltage ripple. The proposed design and control method are verified through simulation using PSCAD/EMTDC.

• Journal of international Conference on Electrical Machines and Systems
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• 제3권2호
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• pp.176-183
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• 2014

Three-phase four-wire distribution systems are used for both three-phase three-wire loads and single-phase two-wire consumer appliances in South Korea, Myanmar and other countries. Unbalanced load conditions frequently occur in these distribution systems. These unbalanced load conditions cause unbalanced voltages for three-phase and single-phase loads, and increase the loss in the distribution transformer. In this paper, we propose constant DC capacitor voltage control based strategy for the active load balancer (ALB) in the three-phase four-wire distribution systems. Constant DC capacitor voltage control is always used in active power line conditioners. The proposed control strategy does not require any computation blocks of the active and reactive currents on the distribution systems. Balanced source-side currents with a unity power factor are obtained without any calculation block of the unbalanced active and reactive components on the load side. The basic principle of the constant DC capacitor voltage control based strategy for the ALB is discussed in detail and then confirmed by both digital computer simulations using PSIM software and prototype experimental model. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate that the proposed control strategy for the ALB can balance the source currents with a unity power factor in the three-phase four-wire distribution systems.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제16권5호
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• pp.1928-1938
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• 2016

The three-phase four-wire shunt active power filter (APF) is an effective method to solve the harmonic problem in three-phase four-wire power systems. In addition, it has two possible topologies, a four-leg inverter and a three-leg inverter with a split-capacitor. There are some studies investigating DC-link voltage control in three-phase four-wire APFs. However, when compared to the four-leg inverter topology, maintaining the balance between the DC-link upper and lower capacitor voltages becomes a unique problem in the three-leg inverter with a split-capacitor topology, and previous studies seldom pay attention to this fact. In this paper, the influence of the balance between the two DC-link voltages on the compensation performance, and the influence of the voltage balance controller on the compensation performance, are analyzed. To achieve the balance between the two DC-link capacitor voltages, and to avoid the adverse effect the voltage balance controller has on the APF compensation performance, a new DC-link voltage balance control strategy for the three-phase four-wire split-capacitor APF is proposed. Representative simulation and experimental results are presented to verify the analysis and the proposed DC-link voltage balance control strategy.

• 한국재료학회지
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• 제25권3호
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• pp.132-137
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• 2015

The effects of the mixing of an active material and a conductive additive on the electrochemical performance of an electric double layer capacitor (EDLC) electrode were investigated. Coin-type EDLC cells with an organic electrolyte were fabricated using the electrode samples with different ball-milling times for the mixing of an active material and a conductive additive. The ball-milling time had a strong influence on the electrochemical performance of the EDLC electrode. The homogeneous mixing of the active material and the conductive additive by ball-milling was very important to obtain an efficient EDLC electrode. However, an EDLC electrode with an excessive ball-milling time displayed low electrical conductivity due to the characteristic change of a conductive additive, leading to poor electrochemical performance. The mixing of an active material and a conductive additive played a crucial role in determining the electrochemical performance of EDLC electrode. The optimal ball-milling time contributed to a homogeneous mixing of an active material and a conductive additive, leading to good electrochemical performance of the EDLC electrode.

• 조명전기설비학회논문지
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• 제24권7호
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• pp.57-63
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• 2010

Photo-capacitor electrodes are attracting great attention because of their high capacitance and potential applications in electronic devices. Carbon capacitor, active carbon capacitor and its combination will be fabricated using a sandwich method as carbonaceous material on each type of storable electrode with $20{\times}15$[mm] cell size. Carbon/active carbon cell was fabricated using sol-gel process with $120[^{\circ}C]$ dry temperature in 2hour and using sintering process with $500[^{\circ}C]$ in 2hour. The effect of sintering temperature on carbon properties was also investigated with an X-ray diffraction technique to get the best sintering temperature. The detail of the fabrication process will be explained. Active carbon as carbonaceous material has a better capacitance in storable electrode with mean thickness $32[{\mu}m]$ and with particle size $1[{\mu}m]$ to $4.5[{\mu}m]$ in $20{\times}15$[mm] sample size of storable electrode.

• 전력전자학회논문지
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• 제23권5호
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• pp.352-358
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• 2018

A split-capacitor (SC) dual-active-bridge (DAB) converter is proposed in this study. The DC-link capacitors of input and output are split in the proposed converter. The primary and secondary windings of transformer are connected to the midpoints of the DC-links. Hence, the SC DAB converter can inherently prevent transformer from saturation. Although the switch current stress of the proposed converter is twice that of the conventional DAB converter, the switch voltage stress is reduced by half. Therefore, the proposed converter can reduce switching loss and achieve high efficiency in a high switching frequency. Given the SC structure, the proposed converter can readily be connected to neutral-point-clamped- or half-bridge-type converters. The topology of the proposed converter is presented and the operating principle is analyzed in detail. A 3-kW hardware prototype was built and tested to verify the performance of the proposed converter.