Unicmicro Hong Kong Limited (contract service) (Sponsor)
GCCALLIANCE (HK) LIMITED
Electrical and Mechanical Services Department
RENOPI (Hongkong) Energy Technology Co., Limited (Sponsor)
Carbon neutrality is a common goal to pursue worldwide by 2050/60 to prevent global average temperature increase to 1.5°C above the pre-industrial levels according to the Paris Agreement. Replacing energy resources from fossil fuel by renewables is inevitable to reduce carbon emission. Solar power has been being the mainstream renewable power selection since it is abundant, infinite to the earth, and economic. According to the Renewables 2022 – Analysis and Forecast to 2027 report prepared by International Energy Agency (IEA), solar PV will share the highest power capacity of the world from 2027 among all energy resources including coal and natural gas. However, compare to the stable and controllable coal-fire and natural gas power, solar PV power produces mainly in the mid-day but not at night; the light intensity is highly weather dependent which could change rapidly. As a result, PV power is an unstable power and cannot support the power demand of human night-time activities. To smoothen the power supply and demand as well as ensure a stable power support day-and-night, PV power system combines with battery storage system, known as PV-battery hybrid system, is the mainstream solution to be developed. The idea is to store the redundant solar energy generated in the local battery rather than feed to the power grid, and release the stored energy whenever, such as at night, it is needed to supply human activities. Therefore, the PV-battery hybrid system can solve the unstable power supply of solar PV and smoothen the power supply and demand to the power grid. In this project, an efficient photovoltaic PV-battery hybrid system for DC grid applications will be developed. It can go to unleash the potential of DC grid and bring the round-trip efficiency, that is PV-to-battery-to-DC grid, to the next level. Three new technologies will be researched and developed with the focuses of system efficiency and reliability, including: 1) Partial power processor (PPP), a battery charge/discharge power converter with merging the battery’s & converter’s characteristics to achieve very efficient battery power conversion; 2) Single conversion structure (SCS), a minimum loss structure of PV-battery system that is matching the PV MPP voltage and battery plateau volage to maximize the power conversion efficiency; and 3) Accurate forced-air cooling (AFC), a cooling technology that can extract the heat of magnetic components effectively by conduction. It can increase system reliability and minimize the power consumption of the cooling fans. With the successful development of the mentioned technologies, a technology platform enabling high efficiency, reliable, and resilience PV-battery hybrid system will be developed. It is a promising business opportunity for our partner to offer next generation DC grid / hybrid AC and DC grids products. The project as well as the commercialization of the developed technologies will contribute to smart city carbon neutrality.
