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DEPT. OF ELECTRIC
 ENGINEERING

 

FACULTY OF
 ENGINEERING

 

UNIVERSITY OF
 BOLOGNA

 

 

 

Activity in LEMA

 

Power Conditioning Systems

 

Here are listed the experimental activities:

- Active filters
- Power Conditioning Systems with Energy Storage Capability (batteries, flywheel, supercapacitors, ecc...)
- Power Conditioning Systems for Generation System (micro - turbo generators, photovoltaic panels, fuel cells,...)
- Multi purpose systems for Power Quality Conditioning combined with Uninterruptible Power Supply.

For experimental activities in these research fields a prototyping system dedicated to the development of power electronic structures and of their control systems is available.

This 'rapid prototyping' system has a great flexibility, allowing the develop of several configuration of static converterS that can be connected in single or two stage configuration and that can be connected in parallel to the grid.

The hardware structure of the system is constituted by two main converters: INVERTER A and INVERTER B that can be connected at the same dc-bus. There is also one more converter that is a static switch that allows to separate the system from the grid. Power stages of the two inverters are based on IGBT, while the static switch uses SCR. All the components are sized for a thermal current of 125A and a continuous voltage of 800V.

There is a measurement system and the related signal conditioning system that can permit the acquisition up to 20 quantities of voltages and currents in the several sections of the power stage.
 


Operation scheme


Power control rack


Inverters A, B and static switch

The control structure of this system is based on the use of the special board dSPACE DS1103, that allows the rapid development of control algorithm for power electronic converters.

The hardware section of the control system is based on:
-          Main control board installed on the ISA bus of a PC containing all the digital devices
-          Main DSP Motorola PowerPC 333 MHz
-          Slave DSP Texas Instruments TMS 320F240
-          16 ADC converters, 16 bit, 4ms
-          4  ADC converters, 12 bit, 0.8ms
-          4  DAC converter 14 bit 6ms
-          interface and connection board.

The software structure of this system is based on the two separated software environment: the development tools and the monitoring/debugging tools:

Programming is based on the use of a compiler RTW/RTI that translate a Simulink scheme in a low level code suitable to be loaded on the two DSP of the DS1103 board.

Debugging is based on the use of the suite 'Control desk' that allows real time monitoring and parameterisation of the control algorithm while it is running.

Hardware chain of the control system from the DS1103board to the drivers of the two converters can be summarized by the scheme shown here on the right.
 


Block diagram of the control system

With this system can be developed a lot of structures and their control systems that allow to manage the power flow among several storage or generation systems and the grid. The aim of these applications is to increase the power quality and the reliability of the furniture of the electical energy.


Possible applications

A typical application is the connection of photovoltaic panels with a single - phase grid.


Connection with photovoltaic panels

For more information, please refer to the research activity in the field power conditioning system.

For information about this experimental activity, please ask to Dr. Claudio Rossi (assistant researcher): claudio.rossi@mail.ing.unibo.it