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Investigation of a family of power conditioners integrated into the utility grid. Final report

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:5240738
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The objective of this contract was to define advanced dc to ac power conditioner conceptual designs for the residential (5 to 15 kW) and intermediate (15 to 200 kW) markets which provide improved interface and economic characteristics for use with solar photovoltaic and other advanced dc sources. Conceptual designs of 10 kilowatt and 80 kilowatt self-commutated power conditioners using advanced transistor and control logic technology were prepared. These ratings provide the best power conditioner economic characteristics for the residential and intermediate market segments. The use of the self-commutated approach with advanced component and logic technology provides for growth in interface characteristics, cost and efficiency as penetration of dc source technologies increases. These improvements can be incorporated with minimal development effort. When compared to presently available equipment, characteristics of the 10-kW unit provide a 30 to 60% reduction in the power conditioner contribution to cost of solar photovoltaic electricity for a mature production situation. The 80-kW unit characteristics provide a 50 to 60% reduction in the same factor. The 10-kW and 80-kW designs are compared to presently available equipment and to the Department of Energy power conditioning goals. The Category 1 unit is near the DOE cost goals, meets full load efficiency goals and exceeds the part load efficiency goals. The Category 2 unit surpasses all DOE goals and is especially attractive with respect to part load efficiency which is quite important in extracting maximum energy from a photovoltaic array.
Research Organization:
United Technologies Corp., South Windsor, CT (USA). Power Systems Div.
DOE Contract Number:
AC02-79ET29355
OSTI ID:
5240738
Report Number(s):
DOE/ET/29355-1; ON: DE82011587
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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200300* -- Electric Power Engineering-- Power Transmission & Distribution-- (-1989)
24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION
AC SYSTEMS
DC SYSTEMS
DESIGN
ELECTRONIC CIRCUITS
ENERGY SYSTEMS
INTERCONNECTED POWER SYSTEMS
OPERATION
PERFORMANCE
PHOTOVOLTAIC POWER PLANTS
POWER CONDITIONING CIRCUITS
POWER PLANTS
POWER SYSTEMS
SOLAR POWER PLANTS