Advanced Power Electronics Integration for Renewables

Organizers

John Seuss, United States (US) Department of Energy (DOE)
Suman Debnath, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)

Abstract

As hybrid resources (like photovoltaic [PV]) and energy storage systems [ESS]) are integrated into the grid and the interconnection standards are upgraded, it is important to understand newer power electronic topologies that can be utilized to reliably integrate these resources like providing advanced grid services. With the increasing maturity shown by silicon carbide (SiC) devices and their corresponding adoption in certain sectors (like industrial drives), there is a need to explore the next-generation power electronics topologies that can utilize the SiC devices to integrate hybrid resources and provide fast/efficient grid services. In this talk, several ongoing research efforts will be discussed to discuss these newer integration approaches of SiC devices and the corresponding advanced control functionalities that they can introduce.

Short Bio of Organizers

John Seuss is a Technology Manager for the Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) of the U.S. Department of Energy. He received his bachelors and doctoral degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2006 and 2016, and a master’s from the University of Central Florida in 2010. Prior to joining SETO, he worked as a field engineer for a transmission line utility and as a research and development engineer for a power system equipment manufacturer. His research interests include the integration of PV and other inverter-based resources to the electric grid, distribution automation, and adaptive protection systems.

Suman Debnath received his bachelors and masters from Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) in 2010, and doctoral degree from Purdue University in 2015. He has since been working with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and is a research and development (R&D) staff over there. He has published over 40 publications and has been awarded several projects worth millions. His research interests include applied mathematics for simulation, modeling, and control of power electronics in various applications (including high-voltage direct current systems, wind, PV, high-power drives, among others).

Speakers and presentations

1. John Seuss United States (US) Department of Energy (DOE)
Overview of Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) and funding efforts in power electronics

2. Suman Debnath, Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Jiuping Pan, Hitachi ABB Power Grids Research
Multi-port Autonomous Reconfigurable Solar power plant (MARS) – Next generation hybrid PV-ESS plant with integrated services

3. Brian Johnson, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
A Cascaded Power Electronics Architecture for Transformerless Medium-voltage PV Systems

4. Alex Q. Huang, University of Texas at Austin
M4 Inverter: An enabling technology for utility scale PV plus storage integration

5. Giri Venkataraman, Wisconsin Electric Machines and Power Electronics Consortium; Mahima Gupta, Portland State University
Power Converter Architectures for Utility-scale Combined Solar Photovoltaic and Battery Storage Systems

6. Yue Zhao, University of Arkansas
All SiC High Power Converters for Combined Integration of Solar PV and Energy Storage

7. Subhashish Bhattacharya, North Carolina State University
Monolithic SiC-based bidirectional FET (BiDFET): Exploring Opportunities and Challenges