Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

Distributed generation (DG) systems based on clean and renewable energy are being increasingly utilized due to their economic, environmental and social benefits. Unlike the large scale wind or PV farms located relatively far from the cities, the small DG based on microsources such as rooftop PV, small wind turbines, microturbines, fuel cells, etc., is becoming an important component for the urban energy strategy. With the rapid increase of these DG systems, the urban power distribution system will experience a paradigm shift. To enable this shift, the inter-connected urban clean energy microgrids are proposed for building a smart and flexible energy distribution system. An urban microgrid is a systematic organization of distributed energy and distributed storage systems in a commercial center, office building, hotels or university campus, etc., and has more capacity and control flexibility to provide improved reliability and superior power quality. Generally, the microsources are dc or non-utility-grade ac, whose voltage/current has to be converted to utility-grade ac with the desired magnitude and frequency through the power electronic interfaces. Furthermore, the DG usually needs an energy storage system to handle the grid transient or load demand change, which is also interfaced to the grid through the power electronic interfaces. As a result, the power electronic interfaces are subject to the requirements related to the energy source characteristics, the energy storage system, the distribution system configuration, power quality, etc. The proposed projects are dedicated to the research on the control and interfaces for the urban clean energy microgrid. Efforts will be put on the interface topologies, PWM schemes and microgrid control strategies. The program will tackle the difficulties for high performance connection of highly dispersed microsources in an urban environment. It will deliver necessary technologies for the development of a smart urban distribution network which can enable the widespread use of clean/renewable energy and energy storage.