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TU Delft Testing use of Rechargeable Home Batteries

February 29, 2016 by Jeff Shepard

Researchers of the TU Delft will, in cooperation with Eneco, carry out three projects in the field of rechargeable home batteries. Eneco plans to be the first supplier of Tesla home batteries in the Netherlands. The DC systems, Energy Conversion & Storage group of professor Pavol Bauer will evaluate this type of battery in three areas: intelligent power management, charging of electric vehicles and dc technology. All in conjunction with solar power. The following is a summary of each project.

Intelligent power management: The uncertainty and uncontrollability of solar irradiation is a challenge for energy systems. A way to cope with this is by incorporating energy storage systems to supply power when there is no irradiation or when it changes rapidly.

By using a battery system in conjunction with solar panels (PV modules), the production and energy storage can be done in a distributed manner (no central power plants). In this research project a household installation in The Netherlands is emulated. The aim is to evaluate the effectiveness of battery to perform intelligent power management. The PV-battery system will be evaluated on implementation cost, efficiency, payback time and autarky.

Electrical vehicles: The focus of the second research project is on the combination of Electrical Vehicles (EV’s) and solar energy. The aim is to develop a highly efficient, modular, smart charging station for electric vehicles that is powered by solar energy. Research has shown that even in a country likeThe Netherlands, there is sufficient solar insolation to charge EV from a PV array. The flipside is that the difference in daily yield between summer and winter is quite drastic. This necessitates a grid connection.

A high efficiency multi-port converter has been designed and built that integrates the PV, EV and grid. To perform thorough testing of the converter in the lab, a smart storage system that imitates the EV, is required. Up to three rechargeable batteries can be used here in parallel to perform full power testing. The energy capacity of three units will be close to the energy capacity of actual electrical vehicles in the market.

DC grid with congestion management: Nowadays all new loads and sources connected to the low voltage grid use dc technology somewhere inside. So instead of connecting them on ac it would be reasonable to think about connecting them with a dc distribution grid. The idea is to use the new opportunities with dc to make the system more resilient to faults in the more and more complex grid. One should be able to use the available distributed energy resources to keep power availability high also in case of supply by up to 100% of renewable energy.

Also, due to the emergence of distributed renewable energy sources and increased load capacity, like electric vehicles, congestions are expected in the distribution grids. Distributed storage can be used to manage congestions and prevent necessity for grid reinforcement. In a demonstration the battery will be used as one of the storage elements reacting on the dynamic prices in the grid.

These researchers will take place in the Electrical Sustainable Power (ESP) Laboratory of the TU Delft where multidisciplinary work is carried out on issues concerning the whole chain of the future energy supply. Research on system integration of sustainable energy technologies, new system components and energy storage is central to the ESP Lab.