The present invention relates to a renewable energy source, a distributed power supply capable of temporarily storing power from a power source, and a power conversion system for stabilizing a power system using the same
As the mankind uses fossil energy, such as coal and oil, various environment problems have been emerged, and the mankind is faced with depletion of the fossil energy. Scientists are warning that the fossil energy will be depleted within decades.
Therefore, researchers are researching on various renewable energy sources, e.g., wind power energy, solar power/solar thermal power energy, geothermal energy, etc. However, such renewable energies are still unable to completely replace fossil energy due to high costs of equipment therefor and insufficient payability. However, due to significant seasonal fluctuation of power generated by the major national power infrastructures, such as nuclear power generation, hydroelectric power generation, and thermal power generation, it is necessary to always have power reserves.
For efficient utilization of power generated by a main power supply source, which is a power infrastructure, a renewable energy source may be connected to a power system. In this case, a charging device, such as a battery, is required for appropriate power conversion in consideration of status of a consuming load. Here, if the renewable energy source supplies active power only, reactive power is not sufficiently compensated when capacity of the main power supply source is small or capacity of the renewable energy source is greater than that of the main power supply source, and thus the overall power system becomes unstable. Therefore, an apparatus and a system for efficiently managing the power system operated by the power infrastructure or the main power supply source by compensating reactive energy while renewable energy is being supplied to the power system is required.
Embodiments of the present invention include a power conversion device capable of controlling reactive power, the power conversion device including an alternative power input unit, which receives alternative power from one or more auxiliary power supply device; a power conversion switching unit, which converts power received via the alternative power input unit to AC power; a charging power supply unit, which is connected to the alternative power input unit and stores power supplied from at least one from between the alternative power input unit and a grid; and a power control unit, which receives information regarding a power factor, demanded active power, and demanded reactive power from the grid connected to a consuming load and controls a voltage and a current output by the power conversion switching unit and a phase difference between the voltage and the current to satisfy the power factor, the demanded active power, and the demanded reactive power received from the grid.
Embodiments of the present invention also includes a power conversion method capable of controlling reactive power, the power conversion method including an operation in which a power control unit receives information regarding a power factor, demanded active power, and demanded reactive power from a grid connected to a consuming load; an operation in which the power control unit applies a voltage command, a current command, and a power factor command for applying a phase difference between a voltage and a current to be generated to a power conversion switching unit, based on the power factor, the demanded active power, and the demanded reactive power; and an operation in which the power conversion switching unit supplies a voltage and a current from at least one power supply device from among one or more auxiliary power supply devices and charging power supply devices, based on the voltage command, the current command, and the power factor command.
By using a multi-functional power conversion system of the present application, power supply in a power system may be maintained stable by utilizing alternative power supply sources, such as various renewable energy sources. Furthermore, power of a power system may be efficiently utilized by receiving information regarding active powers and reactive powers at a power supplying grid and a consumer load and compensating not only the active power, but also the reactive power. Therefore, fossil energy used for power generation may be reduced.
The present invention will now be described more fully with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which exemplary embodiments of the invention are shown. The invention may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as being limited to the embodiments set forth herein.
As the invention allows for various changes and numerous embodiments, particular embodiments will be illustrated in the drawings and described in detail in the written description. However, this is not intended to limit the present invention to particular modes of practice, and it is to be appreciated that all changes, equivalents, and substitutes that do not depart from the spirit and technical scope of the present invention are encompassed in the present invention.
Like reference numerals in the drawings denote like elements.
The present invention will now be described more fully with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which exemplary embodiments of the invention are shown.
The mankind that has been depending on fossil energy, such as coal and oil, for long time now faces with environmental problems and depletion of fossil energy. Nuclear energy is getting the spotlight as the replacement for the fossil energy. However, nuclear energy also as a risk of radiation leakage and a cost of constructing a nuclear power plant is high.
Recently, alternative energies, that is, renewable energies other than the national power infrastructure, such as nuclear power generation, hydroelectric power generation, and thermal power generation, are being developed. By developing such alternative energies or renewable energies, power dependency on the power infrastructures or the main power supply source in one big power system may be distributed to renewable energy sources, thus being helpful to operation of the power system. In other words, if a distributed power supply, such as a large capacity battery or a charging device, is arranged, a power system operator may monitor status of a consuming load via communication, and, when power demand of the consuming load is at the peak, a renewable energy from the distributed power supply may be accessorily utilized. As a result, a power system may be significantly stabilized.
Furthermore, if a power converter is capable of compensating both active power and reactive power of the consuming load, the power system may be further stabilized. Compensation of reactive power is more essential in a case where capacity of a power infrastructure that supplies power to a consuming load is small. In detail, if a power infrastructure includes a small-scale power generator having a small capacity, such as a diesel power generator, when a renewable energy source is connected thereto for auxiliary power supply and only active power is supplied from the renewable energy source, the corresponding power system may become unstable. Not only in the case where a power infrastructure includes a small-scale power generator, as importance of renewable energy is being emphasized, magnitudes of renewable energies produced by consumers are increasing. As a result, renewable energies will become more significant in the overall power generation, and thus stabilization of a power system will become more important.
If such a renewable energy is capable of appropriately distributing active power and reactive power according to power factor of a power system, the power system may be stably operated with sufficient utilization of the renewable energy.
Therefore, the power conversion device and the power control according to the present invention may not only reduces costs by offsetting reserve power of a power infrastructure by simply adding an alternative energy or a renewable energy, but also may stabilize a power system via reactive power compensation.
Throughout this documentation, the term ‘renewable energy’ and the term ‘alternative energy’ will be used for a same meaning.
Referring to
Power dependency of a consuming load on a main power supply 140, such as a main power supply source or a power infrastructure, may be reduced by utilizing such a renewable energy source. To operate such a power system, a multi-functional power conversion system 100 of the present application is included in the power system. The multi-functional power conversion system 100 includes an AC/DC converter 101, which is a converter for converting an alternated current (AC) to a direct current (DC), a DC/DC converter 103, which is a converter for converting a DC to a DC having a different size, a DC/DC battery charger 109, a DC/AC inverter 105, which is an inverter for converting a DC to an AC, and a sine wave rectification filter 107, which includes an inductor for removing harmonic wave noises from a PWM output voltage, such that the PWM output voltage becomes similar to a sine wave.
Furthermore, the multi-functional power conversion system 100 further includes a control center 170 for diagnosing status of a consuming load, receiving information regarding the diagnosis via communication, and transmitting the information to an energy management system (EMS) 160, where the EMS 160 receives the information regarding status of the consuming load from the control center 170 and controls the multi-functional power conversion system 100 based on the information. The EMS 160 may be a power controller and will be used with the same meaning as terms ‘power controller’ and ‘power control unit’ herein. Of course, the EMS 160 and a power controller of the present application may be separate devices. In other words, the EMS 160 may simply receive information regarding a grid and a consumer load, e.g., power factor information, a requesting amount of an active power, and a requesting amount of a reactive power, from the control center 170 and forward the information to a power control unit, so that the power control unit may generate a voltage and a current satisfying the power factor by controlling a switching unit of the multi-functional power conversion system 100 according to the power factor information, the requesting amount of an active power, and the requesting amount of a reactive power. Furthermore, the EMS 160 controls sizes of and a phase difference between an output voltage and an output current by performing d-q conversion required for controlling an inverter (or a converter) and functioning as a related controller, e.g., a PI controller.
Energy generated by a renewable energy source or surplus power from a consuming load or a grid 140 may be charged to a battery bank 150 via the DC/DC battery charger 109. The DC/DC battery charger 109 may also be referred to as a charger or a charging power supply unit.
The DC/AC inverter 105 shown in
In
Referring to
Currently, since power supplied from the main power supply 140 in the entire power system is not sufficient for the consuming loads 180 and 190, it is necessary to supply power from an auxiliary power supply. If solar power generation is difficult for weather conditions and strong wind blows, it is necessary to use alternative power supplied from the wind power generator 110. Therefore, power generated by the wind power generator 110 does not charge an (auxiliary) distributed power supply, such as the battery bank 150, and is directly supplied to the power system. Here, the EMS 160 receives a communication indicating that the power system requires more power, operates the DC/AC inverter 105, and supplies power generated by the wind power generator 110 to the power system.
In any of the cases shown in
The multi-functional power conversion system 100 may control a voltage and a current to have phase differences therebetween by controlling switching of the DC/AC inverter 105 by reflecting power factor information of the consuming loads.
Although powers are being generated by both the wind power generator 110 and the solar power generator 130, if consuming loads in a power system do not require auxiliary power supply, surplus power generated by auxiliary power supply sources are charged to the battery bank 150, which is a distributed power supply and a charging power device. The power charged to the battery bank 150 is temporarily stored and will be useful later when no power is generated by the auxiliary power supply sources or there is an excessive load in the power system.
The battery bank 150 is completely charged and it is no longer necessary to charge the battery bank 150. Therefore, electric energy generated by the auxiliary power supply sources, that is, the wind power generator 110 and the solar power generator 130 bypasses the distributed power supply, which is the battery bank 150, and is supplied to the consuming loads 180 and 190. If the EMS 160 controls amount of power supplied by the grid 140 by communicating with the grid 140, power efficiency may be significantly improved. The EMS 160, which may be considered as a power controller, may control power supplied from the battery bank 150 and the auxiliary power supply sources to consuming loads. A switch may be arranged at the output end of the battery bank 150 or a connecting end of an auxiliary power supply source and may be controlled by the power controller. Furthermore, power output may also be controlled by switching the DC/AC inverter 105.
Here, if information regarding power factors, demanded active power, and demanded reactive power of the consuming loads 180 and 190 is received, switching control may be performed, such that renewable energies from renewable energy sources, such as the wind power generator 110 and the solar power generator 130, may be supplied to the consuming loads 180 and 190 while active power and reactive power maintain the power factors at the consuming loads 180 and 190. A switching semiconductor therefor may be any of various switching semiconductors commonly used in power conversion devices, e.g., IGBT, GTO, power MOSFET, etc.
Currently, no power is generated by the auxiliary power supply sources, that is, the wind power generator 110 and the solar power generator 130. However, there are the consuming loads 180 and 190 to which sufficient power cannot be supplied by the grid 140. The EMS 160 receives a communication indicating the power system status and supplies power to the power system by operating the battery bank 150 that is charged in advance. As described above, information regarding power factors, demanded active power, and demanded reactive power of the consuming loads 180 and 190 is received via the EMS 160 in advance and switching control is performed by applying a phase difference to a voltage and a current during DC/AC conversion of power from the battery bank 150, such that demanded power factors, demanded active power, and demanded reactive power are satisfied.
Referring to
Currently, an amount of power demanded by the consuming loads 180 and 190 is not very large. Therefore, surplus power is generated by the grid 140, which is a power infrastructure. An example thereof is formation of surplus power at night after supplying a large amount of power during daytime. Here, the EMS 160 checks status of load in a power system. If it is determined that surplus power is being generated, the surplus power may be charged to a distributed power supply, such as the battery bank 150. At this point, the switching device (diode) of the DC/AC inverter 105 functions as a rectifier and may charge AC power from the grid 140 to the battery bank 150.
Currently, the power factor at the consuming loads 180 and 190 is 0.7, whereas the power factor of the main power supply is 0.9. In this case, the multi-functional power conversion system 100 may control reactive power. For example, when electric power stored in the battery bank 150 is converted to AC power via the DC/AC inverter 105, such that a phase difference between an output voltage and an output current is 90 degrees, only reactive power may be supplied, and the power factor (0.7) of the consuming load may be satisfied by controlling supply of the reactive power. In this case, only reactive power is supplied to a grid and the consuming load.
Referring to
As shown in (a) of
In detail, referring to (c), if there is reactive power Pr with respect to active power Pa, the overall power is Pw and power factor PF is PF=cos θ=Pa/Pw. Here, it is assumed that the maximum power that may be supplied by the main power supply, which is the grid, is Pw, whereas the entire consuming loads require the overall power Pw′. In this case, in
A case in which only reactive power is compensated as shown in
Therefore, the power system may be stabilized by receiving information regarding the power factor demanded by the consuming load via the EMS 160 and generating only reactive power Pr″ in a power converter.
Referring to
In
An Eq 950 denotes a q-axis voltage that is input by a power system and is d-q converted, whereas an Ed 960 is a d-axis voltage that is input by the power system and is d-q converted. An iq* 910 denotes a q-axis reference current regarding size of a phase angle w, whereas an id* 920 denotes a d-axis reference current regarding size of the phase angle w. A wL 970 denotes a gain value of the current controller, where w denotes a phase difference between an output current and an output voltage. Generally, θ/t=w=2πf.
At a current controller 900, which is the front-end, differences between the reference currents iq* 910 and id* 920 and actual currents iq 911 and id 921 become inputs of PI controllers 930 and 940, and current control is performed by adding and subtracting values wL* iq* and wL* id* to and from outputs of the PI controllers 930 and 940. At a rear-end system 990, currents iq 913 and id 923 supplied to a power system are generated from output voltages of the current controller. The current controller 900 enables power control in consideration of reactive power of the present application and may control voltages and phases. The current control may be performed by the EMS 160 of
As in
If the grid 140 is blocked but the consuming loads 180 and 190 still demand power, the EMS 160 receives a communication indicating the power blockage and supplies power to the consuming loads 180 and 190 via wind power generator 110, the solar power generator 130, or, if possible, the battery bank 150 by immediately controlling the multi-functional power conversion system 100. For example, if power supplied from Korea Electric Power Corporation is blocked by an accident, the multi-functional power conversion system 100 may temporarily function as a large-scale uninterruptible power supply (UPS) for preventing power interruption by using the alternative energy supply sources.
In
AC power generated by the power conversion switching unit 1230 is filtered by a rectification filter unit 1240 including an inductor. A power control unit 1250 receives feedbacks of a power factor, demanded active power, and demanded reactive power from a consuming load connected to the output end of the power conversion device 1200 and control a phase difference between a voltage and a current output by the power conversion switching unit 1230, thereby supplying active power and reactive power demanded by the consuming load to a power system according to the power factor. As described above, the power conversion device 1200 of the present application not only simply supplies active power to a power system, but also receives a feedback of a power factor of a consuming load and controls power conversion switching, such that active power and reactive power satisfies demands of the consuming load.
If it is not necessary to supply power from the auxiliary power supply device 1290 or the charging power supply unit 1220 to the consuming load, the power control unit 1250 charges power from the auxiliary power supply device 1290 to the charging power supply unit 1220. Furthermore, the power control unit 1250 may charge electric power to the charging power supply unit 1220 via the power conversion switching unit 1230 from a power infrastructure of an organization such as Korea Electric Power Corporation, which supplies power to the consuming load.
Furthermore, the power control unit 1250 may supply alternative energy input via the charging power supply unit 1220 or the alternative power input unit 1210 to a power infrastructure via the power conversion switching unit 1230.
First, the power controller of the power converter receives feedbacks of a power factor, demanded active power, and demanded reactive power from the grid to which the consuming load is connected (operation S1310).
The power controller applies a voltage command, a current command, and a power factor command for applying a phase difference between a voltage and a current to be generated to a power conversion switching unit, based on the power factor, the demanded active power, and the demanded reactive power (operation S1320). The voltage command indicates size of a voltage to be generated, the current command indicates size of a current to be generated, and the power factor command is a command for controlling a phase difference between the voltage and the current by controlling power conversion switching. If the power converter only supplies reactive power, the phase difference between the voltage and the current will be 90 degrees according to the power factor command.
The power conversion switching unit supplies the voltage and the current to the consuming load from at least one power supply device from among one or more auxiliary power supply devices and charging power supply devices, based on the voltage command, the current command, and the power factor command (operation S1330).
The phase difference between the generated voltage and the generated current is controlled to maintain power factor according to the information provided by the grid or the consuming load. If no active power and no reactive power are demanded, the power controller charges power from at least one power supply device from between the grid and the auxiliary power supply device to the charging power supply unit.
While the present invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to exemplary embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the following claims.
According to the embodiments of the present invention, power supply in a power system may be maintained stable by utilizing alternative power supply sources, such as various renewable energy sources.
In addition, according to the embodiments of the poser invention, power of a power system may be efficiently utilized by receiving information regarding active powers and reactive powers at a power supplying grid and a consumer load and compensating not only the active power, but also the reactive power. Therefore, fossil energy used for power generation may be reduced.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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1020100113183 | Nov 2010 | KR | national |
1020110015603 | Feb 2011 | KR | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
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PCT/KR2011/008391 | 11/4/2011 | WO | 00 | 5/15/2013 |