Analysis of Power Quality in Complex DC Power Networks

Completed

Other Power and Storage Technologies(Electricity transmission and distribution)

Basic and strategic applied research

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Electrical and Electronic Engineering)

Not Cross-cutting

Dr R Todd
Electrical & Electronic Engineering
University of Manchester

Standard

EPSRC

30 June 2015

30 September 2016

15 months

£99,767

Energy

North West

NC : Engineering

Dr R Todd, Electrical & Electronic Engineering, University of Manchester

Project Contact, Rolls-Royce PLC

Protecting the environment for future generations to enjoy is a key priority for the international community. Emissions from all forms of transport systems, and land based power generation are being addressed by ambitious targets, such as decarbonising both the UK's road transport and power generation sectors by 2050 (A strategy for ultra-low emission vehicles in the UK, 2013, Dept. of Trans., & Delivering our low carbon future, 2011, HM Gov.), and the Flightpath 2050 target of a 75% reduction in CO2 emissions per passenger kilometre relative to an aircraft built in 2000 (Europe's vision for aviation, 2011, EU Comm.). A key challenge to achieving these targets is developing low carbon technologies, and this is being enthusiastically embraced by researchers, with power electronic based systems being widely proposed due to their high efficiency, controllability, flexibility and reliability. This high concentration of power electronic converters, often in small DC networks, can adversely affect system stability; power converters employ sophisticated control and protection functions which are sensitive to changes on the network, these changes can easily be triggered by normal operation of another power converter, and can result in another power converter unnecessarily going offline, which may compromise network security. This project aims to develop a fundamental understanding of power quality in complex DC power networks, and then examine a diverse range of real world scenarios to evaluate power quality using a 100kW DC power network demonstrator system. A key outcome of this project will be to enable systems which have high concentrations of power converters to be designed with confidence, enabling low carbon technologies to be fully exploited in future electric vehicles, aircraft and smart grids.

18/09/15