Sustainable, Portable, and Efficient Electricity Delivery (SPEED): Design, Control, and Testing

Abstract

During emergencies or natural disasters, or at remote areas, the main electrical grid might be damaged or not accessible, therefore, a sustainable electricity generation is critical for human survivals or other electricity needs. This paper presents a sustainable, portable, and efficient electricity delivery (SPEED) system for community emergency, disaster relief, and power supply at remote areas. A demonstrated system with utility-level AC power output is built up with a 180 W photovoltaics (PV) array which consists of six serial-connected solar panels, a 1.8 kWh battery pack, a SYNDEM power converter, and a data monitoring subsystem. The autonomous operation of the system is achieved by advanced control technologies for power electronic converters in both islanded mode and grid-connected mode, while providing the overcharging and overdischarging protections of the battery pack. Field testing is conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed SPEED system under different scenarios.

Keywords

• Sustainable portable electricity
• solar energy
• emergency/disaster relief
• power electronics control
• battery protections