Importance of the Power-Electronic on Integration Processes Using Renewable Energies

Abstract

Power Electronics Technology has significantly evolved over the last years. As a result of tremendous developments in the semiconductor industry, the number of industrial applications in which high-performance devices are used, has been increasing. Nowadays, this technology plays an important role in the integration process of novelty renewable energy applications, the control of a system including different types of energies (e.g. thermal and electrical) can be a good example. Recently, the employment of a system based on the integration process technique, known as PMHI (Power, Mass and Heat Integration), has been gaining interest. In PMHI system, operative parameters are controlled by electronic devices. In this work, the electric parameters in a PMHI system controlled by power electronic devices are verified. The verification of these parameters is important for the process operation due to even a small variation in any electric parameter can cause a significant change in operation flows accuracy. A study case where commercial power electronic devices and a PV cell are utilized to provide the electrical energy required to build up a PMHI system, is presented. Electric parameters in the system are compared for two different cases of electric energy supplied: Energy generated through the PV Cell and Energy obtained from electrical network. Even though, theoretically, no differences should be expected from both cases, experimental results show the opposite.