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Smart Battery Control for Improved Power System Stability

Technology Application

This technology can potentially be used to enhance the efficiency and stability of smart grids.

Detailed Technology Description

UC San Diego researchers are proposing an economical battery charger and inverter that improves stability and reduce system disturbances while controlling energy transfers between home batteries (HB) and plug-in electric vehicles (PEV) and the power grid. The control mechanism is based on local frequency values, which are measured with a low-cost peripheral interface controller (PIC) that can also be used to regulate the power exchange rate. A decrease in frequency signals a power shortage, thus batteries are instructed to feed additional power to the grid, in essence acting as small generators. By regulating the power output of the batteries the researchers showed that: 1) frequency and voltage fluctuations following a disturbance are reduced up to 80%; 2) the system takes up to 11 times less time to stabilize; the critical clearing time is extended by 40%; 3) steady-state stability is improved; the region of asymptotical stability expands; and the system becomes more robust overall. Furthermore, since the regulatory actions following large disturbances usually last only a few seconds, the effects of power regulation on the vehicle's energy reserves is minimal. Another novel aspect of this control mechanism is that the algorithm is implemented locally and only relies on local frequency values; this is a significant departure from most current approaches in smart grid that rely on a centralized entity that to manage and control a series of devices. In summary, by ways of smart local control of home batteries and plug-in electric vehicles, power grid stability can be improved using only local frequency values. The use of our control strategy results in improved steady-state stability, larger region of stability, reduced frequency and voltage fluctuations, faster stabilization and longer critical clearing times. More technical details can be found at this draft publication. http://arxiv.org/pdf/1506.07097.pdf

Others

State Of Development

UC San Diego researchers propose a battery-to-grid (B2G) extended battery charger that consists of three main blocks: (1) a battery charger, (2) an inverter circuit and (3) a controller that adjust inverter power to the frequency deviation.

The controller block implementation may vary from a very simple frequency counter (such as ICM72161) combined with a custom finite state machine, up to a powerful smart general purpose computer, that offers a web configuration and control interface. The controller block will continuously measure the frequency deviation and switch on/off the charger (via G2B signal) or the inverter (via B2G signal). It will also regulate the inverter's output power based on the measured frequency deviation. Control is done locally with a bidirectional charger (G2B and B2G) using only local frequency values thus avoiding the need for a complex communication infrastructure and centralized control. This way the concerns about the network latency, data privacy and security will be minimal.

Tech ID/UC Case

25460/2015-247-0

Related Cases

2015-247-0

Country/Region

USA

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