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GROUNDING CONFIGURATIONS OF
DC NANOGRID AND STUDY OF DUAL-
BUCK-BOOST AC/DC CONVERTER
SHINTON EAPPEN GEORGE
Department of Electrical And Electronics Engineering
Sahrdaya College Of Engineering And Technology, Kodakara , Thrissur, Kerala
II. GROUNDING CONFIGURATIONS OF DC
NANOGRID
Abstract—The invention of distributed power generation In order to ensure the safety in the grid, most of household
sources and the widely used dc characterized loads, the dc appliances are required to be connected with ground line, so in
nanogrid becomes more and more attractive. Considering
the costs, the efficiency, and also the safety, the grounding
a dc nanogrid, like in a low-voltage ac grid, ground line should
configuration needs to be addressed when designing the ac–dc be provided [12], [13]. There are three basic grounding
converter for a dc nanogrid system. An ac–dc converter with configurations: the united grounding, the unidirectional
three terminal outputs has been presented for the united grounding, and the virtual isolated grounding. They will be
grounding configurationbased dc nanogrid. explained in the following.
Index Terms—AC-DC converters, dc nanogrid, buck boost A. United Grounding Configuration
converter,grounding. In this configuration, the ac low-power system and the dc
nanogrid use the same ground line. Fig. 1 shows a typical
I. INTRODUCTION ac/dc converter connection. The advantage of the united
grounding configuration is that the dc nanogrid can easily be
D UE to the energy crisis and the environmental pollution
installed into the original low voltage ac power grid to form a
hybrid power system. The disadvantage is that due to the low-
voltage devices, most of the original low-voltage ac power
caused by the consumption of fossil fuel, the development
of renewable energy generation has been an increasingly systems cannot adopt this configuration and share the same
critical topic [1]–[4]. Since renewable energies have the ground line directly with a dc nanogrid, if no special or
intrinsic intermittence and fluctuation, in order to improve the complicated ac/dc converters are adopted. At the same time,
reliability and the quality of power supply, nanogrids [3], [5], the dc nanogrid has to adopt a bipolar voltage structure with
[6] have been proposed to facilitate the connection of three terminal outputs [1], [10].
renewable power sources to the traditional ac power system.
Now most renewable power conversion systems are connected
to ac nanogrids[7]. On the other hand, more and more loads
show dc characteristics [6], [8]–[11], for example, the variable
frequency drives, the LED lighting applications, the computer
power supplies, and the data centers [10], [11], which
constitute a significant portion of the energy consuming loads
[8]. If the renewable energies can be directly utilized via the
dc nanogrids, the total energy efficiency will be obviously
improved. Therefore, the research works on the dc nanogrids
are drawing more and more attention [8]–[20], especially for
the control of ac–dc
topologies [12], [15]–[19], which interface with the dc
nanogrid and the traditional ac power systems. This paper
analyzes first three grounding configurations of the dc
nanogrid. Then, a dual-buck–boost ac/dc converter is
proposed, which will facilitate the applications of the dc
nanogrid. B. Unidirectional Grounding Configuration
As described above, due to the low-voltage limit of the
devices, it is difficult for the dc nanogrid to use the same
ground line of the low-voltage ac power system. Many papers
are considering the unidirectional grounding configuration to
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construct a dc nanogrid [1], [10], [11]. Fig. 2 shows a brought by the additional transformer together with the
unidirectional grounding-configuration-based dc nanogrid possible more converters to be used.
with double dc bus and the grounding. In this configuration,
the dc nanogrid absorbs the power from the high voltage
ac utility grid through a step-down transformer, which
works like an isolated transformer. Since the step-down
transformer offers a suitable low voltage for the dc nanogrid,
this ac voltage is generally lower than the standard ac voltage.
For example, a three-phase step-down transformer may output
a 200-V phase-to-phase voltage rather than the standardized
380-V voltage. The ac/dc converter transfers the ac power into
the dc power as the required dc voltage output and power
rating. For example, the dc nanogrid can be a single-dc-bus-
based system [2], [8], [11] or a double-dc-bus [1], [10] system.
The advantage of the unidirectional grounding configuration
is that the ac/dc converter can use simple-structure converters
such as the two-level three-phase converter [4] or the three-
level three-phase converter [10] or even other [1]. The
disadvantage of this configuration is that the output of the
step-down transformer cannot be connected with other low-
voltage ac residential loads directly.
III. PROPOSED AC/DC CONVERTER FOR THE
UNITED-GROUNDING-CONFIGURATION -BASED DC
Traditionally, the dc nanogrid is connected into the ac power
system with bidirectional ac- dc converters, which allows
extra dc power to be injected back into the ac power system.
In some areas, due to the high population density, the
distributed power generally cannot meet the demand of the
local loads, so the connection between the ac power system
and the dc nanogrid can be simplified to be a power factor
correction circuit. In [15]–[19], ac/dc converters were
reviewed and compared. However, suitable ac/dc converters
for the united-grounding-configuration based dc nanogrid
. application were not introduced. In this paper, a new ac/dc
C. Virtual Isolated Grounding Configuration. converter is proposed.
As mentioned in Sections II-A and II-B, it is no easy to realize
the hybrid ac and dc grid system with the same ground line
due to the reason of the low-voltage devices. So, the virtual
isolated grounding configuration was proposed [2], [9], [14],
which has two basic methods as shown in Fig. 3 with different
types of transformers. Fig. 3(a) shows the virtual isolated
grounding configuration using a line transformer [2], [14].
This method is similar to the unidirectional grounding
configuration, while the transformer is connected with the
low-voltage ac power system instead of the high-voltage ac
power system. Fig. 3(b) shows the virtual isolated grounding
configuration using a high-frequency link transformer [9].
Different from the method shown in Fig. 3(a), the high-
frequency link transformer is used and two converters are .
adopted to transfer the energy. Due to an improved efficiency Fig. 4 shows the proposed ac/dc converter as the connecting
of the converter, the high-frequency link-transformer-based converter between three-level voltage dc nanogrid and the low
method will be more attractive than the line-frequency voltage ac power system. The proposed converter has a
transformer system. The advantage of the virtual isolated vertical symmetry structure. During the positive period of the
grounding configuration is that it is very flexible to construct ac voltage, the devices in red work while the devices in black
the dc nanogrid as required. The disadvantage of the virtual are OFF. During the negative period of the ac voltage, the
isolated grounding configuration lies in the extra power losses devices in black work while the devices in red are OFF.
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Operating Modes of the Proposed AC/DC Converter
1) |E1 | or |E2| ≥VgA : When the input dc voltage (E1, or
E2 ) is larger than the amplitude value of grid voltage, VgA ,
the equivalent circuits are as shown in Fig. 5. The inverter
works as a pure Boost power factor correction circuit.
IV. CONCLUSION
2) |E1 | and |E2 | <VgA : When the input dc voltages In residential applications, the dc nanogrid should provide
(E1 ,E2 ) are lower than the amplitude of grid voltage (VgA ), ground line for safety. The grounding configuration
the control becomes a little bit more complicated. Fig. 6 determines the different requirements on the ac/dc converters.
shows the working sequence of the proposed ac/dc converter, In this paper, three types of the grounding configurations for
when the amplitude of the input dc voltage is lower than the ac the dc nanogrid are summarized. The following can be
grid voltage, and the sequence can be separated into six parts concluded.
during a full line-frequency period. Fig. 7 shows the 1) The united grounding configuration is the most attractive,
equivalent circuits in the buck–boost operation. It can be seen since the dc nanogrid can be directly connected
that during different working sequences, it works as a pure with the low-ac-power system using the same ground
boost or as a pure buck converter line, which will strongly address the high-efficiency character
of the dc nanogrid. This grounding configuration makes it
easy to construct a dc nanogrid based on the original low-
voltage ac power system and contributes to the application of
the dc nanogrid. However, suitable ac/dc converters are
currently lacking of this grounding configuration.
2) The unidirectional grounding configuration is widely
introduced in current dc nanogrids. It is suitable to construct
a new dc nanogrid alone.
3) Compared with the united and unidirectional grounding
configurations, the flexibility of the virtual isolated
grounding configuration is good, but it results in reduced
efficiency, more materials, and thereby higher costs.
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