Experimental Evaluation of a Switching Matrix Applied in a Bank of Supercapacitors

Abstract

Distributed power generation systems (DPGSs) integrate power sources that tend to be smaller than the typical utility scale, such as for renewable energy sources and other applications. Storage systems that incorporate supercapacitors (SCs) have been proposed to extend the life of batteries and to increase the power capacity of the DPGSs, guaranteeing maximum efficiency. The extraction of energy in SCs is more demanding than in the case of batteries; when SCs have delivered only 75% of their energy, their voltage has already decreased to 50%. Beyond this value, the banks fail to meet the requirements demanded by loads that require a minimum voltage to operate correctly, leaving 25% of the energy unused, thereby limiting the deep charge/discharge cycles that occur. This paper presents a model of a switching matrix applied in a bank of SCs. The model allows the use of a simpler circuit to achieve a large number of serial/parallel-configuration connections (levels), improving the utilization of energy to obtain deep discharge cycles in each SC; therefore, by increasing the average energy extracted from each SC, it extends the power delivery time in the storage bank. The efficiency was verified by experimental results obtained using a bank of six SCs.

Mejoras de las Condiciones de Almacenamiento de Energía a través de Bancos de Supercapacitores: Revisión Bibliográfica

“…Los patrones de descarga muestran que las reconfiguraciones propuestas aumentan el tiempo de descarga en todos los casos. (Reveles- Miranda et al, 2017b).…”

Control of Current Phase Advancing in Single-Leg Power Converters with the Use of Switched Capacitors

“…Simulation of single-leg two-phase matrix converter has been done with an active two-phase induction motor load using MATLAB/Simulink environment. The principal scheme is shown in Figure 19 [1][2][3][17][18][19][20]. We have two feedback loops.…”

Analysis of a Supercapacitor/Battery Hybrid Power System for a Bulk Carrier

“…As shown in Figure 6, the LIB offers a fairly constant discharge voltage performance throughout the spectrum of usable energy, whereas the SC voltage shows a linear and decreasing behavior from the maximum value up to 50% in general. Even if the stored energy is proportional to the product of the capacitance for the square of the voltage, the delivered power decreased in the discharging phase because the current is limited [31,32]. Thus, the available energy of the designed SC pack (E SC_design ) is calculated by the following equation [31,33]:…”