Efficient Utilization of Control Techniques using Power Electronic Converters in Industrial Applications

Owing to the change in recent trends in energy consumption, the objective of the design and construction industry is shifting towards different ways to save energy or to increase the energy efficiency. The concept of energy savings has shifted from the load to a global perspective, including th

Project Title

Efficient Utilization of Control Techniques using Power Electronic Converters in Industrial Applications

Project Area of Specialization

Shared Economy

Project Summary

Owing to the change in recent trends in energy consumption, the objective of the design and construction industry is shifting towards different ways to save energy or to increase the energy efficiency. The concept of energy savings has shifted from the load to a global perspective, including the generation source and, distribution efficiency A lot of energy is wasted due to the conversions from AC to DC and vice versa along with certain losses. For this very purpose the DC microgrids have paved their way in the industry as they make use of the renewable resources, take DC input from them and feeds them to a controller circuit which efficiently distributes them to the load accordingly.

DC microgrids are the recent advancement in the field of electricity, power and technology. They have been introduced into the world not long ago and are gaining the attention of the industrialists, researchers and the consumers due to its low cost, less number of components and better efficiency. In addition to that it is also eco-friendly and provides a better alternative to the AC transmission and distribution system by efficiently reducing the power and line losses and with less risks to the occupants. In a nutshell, it is a complete new method of generation, transmission, distribution and the replacement of DC with the current and in-system AC power. However nothing is perfect and so no such controller exists which can solve the problems occurring in the dc microgrids efficiently.

This project deals with a linear and a non-linear control technique cascaded control structure to cope with the different problems occurring and to efficiently reduce them. Conventionally PI controllers are used to fulfill this purpose. A novel Sliding Mode Controller (SMC) has been proposed in this project in a cascaded structure to enhance the reliability and efficiency of the controller. The SMC is a non-linear robust control technique which in parameter invariant and it has unique features such as model reduction and disturbance rejection. A comparison has been offered with a PI-PI and a PI-SMC cascaded controller to evaluate the results of the better technique in terms of stability, robustness, efficiency and implementation cost. In addition to that, a Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) device is also designed to extract the maximum power from the renewable energy resources at any given time and weather condition.

The ultimate goal is to establish a user friendly product which will be able to extract the maximum power from the resources and provide stable voltages to the grid in the presence of unmodeled dynamics and uncertainties. This product combines the features of the MPPT, the controller and the DC microgrid in a single product such that the product will only need the source as the input and a load to provide its output to. This product is cost effective, easy to install and can be implemented on any renewable energy resource.  

Project Objectives

1. Hardware implementation of a DC microgrid.
2. Controller design using PI-PI cascaded control structure.
3. Controller design using PI-SMC cascaded control structure.
4. MPPT device design using analogue or digital algorithms.
5. A highly efficient, low cost and a user friendly product.

Project Implementation Method

1. Hardware implementation of a DC microgrid.
2. Design of a control law based controller for PI-PI.
3. Experimental verification of the PI-PI controller on the grid.
4. Design of a control law based controller for PI-SMC.
5. Experimental verification of the PI-SMC controller on the grid.
6. Comparison of both the techniques for robustness, efficiency, stability and cost.
7. Design of a MPPT device to extract the maximum power from the resources.
8. Experimental verification of the MPPT device with both the controllers.
9. Comparison of both the techniques with MPPT, for robustness, efficiency, stability and cost.
10. Development of a user friendly and easy to install industrial product.

Benefits of the Project

1. Providing a comparison between the conventional techniques used in a microgrid to our novel proposed technique.
2. Development of a low cost controller which uses only commercially available Integrated Circuits (IC’s).
3. Design of a MPPT technique using low cost commercially available components.
4. Development of a low cost and user friendly product combining both the MPPT and the controller.
5. Integrating the product such that it only needs a source as the input, and to connect its output to the load.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

1. Prototype of the PI-PI controller.
2. Prototype of the PI-SMC controller.
3. Prototype of the MPPT device
4. Prototype of the DC microgrid.
5. Final product having the MPPT, controller and the DC microgrid.

Final Deliverable of the Project

Hardware System

Type of Industry

Energy

Technologies

Others

Sustainable Development Goals

Affordable and Clean Energy, Decent Work and Economic Growth, Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

Required Resources

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