I-Corps: Highly Scalable Differential Power Processing Architecture

I-Corps项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是为诸如光伏和数据中心等潜在市场制定更有效的电力处理和输送方案。典型的太阳能装置即使在只有部分电池板被遮蔽的情况下，也远远不能收集到入射功率。该项目将利用一种在该行业尚未成功商业化的架构。成功实施将意味着更好地利用太阳能装置和更小、更便宜的电力电子设备，帮助美国电网脱碳。对于数据中心来说，必须将高压直流母线的电源降压到许多低压CPU负载上，从而导致巨大的损耗。在这种情况下，所提出的功率处理方案可以导致更低的损耗，从而在这个日益耗电的应用领域实现更高的效率和成本节约。I-Corps项目的基础是为差分功率处理架构开发可扩展的控制方案，以降低成本并促进采用。所提出的体系结构利用许多（更小、更轻的额定功率，并且可能更便宜）功率转换器，通过差分功率处理（DPP）更好地优化功率利用率。传统方法可能使用一个大型电源转换器来处理功率，最终无法收集/提供最大的可用功率。DPP架构的关键优势在于，单个功率转换器仅处理各自源或负载之间的功率差异，并且大多数功率根本不需要由任何转换器处理，从而提高了效率。该项目实施的新颖之处在于，单个转换器的控制可以分散，从而提高可靠性和降低成本。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of more efficient schemes for power processing and delivery for potential markets such as photovoltaics and data centers. Typical solar installations can fall far short of harvesting even the incident power when only part of a panel is shaded. The project would utilize an architecture that has not been successfully commercialized in this industry. Successful implementation would mean better utilized solar installations with smaller and cheaper power electronics, helping decarbonize the US electrical grid. For data centers, power must be stepped down from a high voltage DC bus to many low voltage CPU loads, leading to significant losses. In this case, the proposed power processing scheme could result in much lower losses, thus enabling greater efficiency and cost savings in this increasingly energy-hungry application space.This I-Corps project is based on the development of a scalable control scheme for a differential power processing architecture that reduces costs and could spur adoption. The proposed architecture utilizes many (smaller, lighter-rated, and potentially cheaper) power converters to better optimize power utilization using differential power processing (DPP). Traditional approaches might use one large power converter to process power that would end up not harvesting/delivering the maximum utilizable power. The key advantage of DPP architectures is that individual power converters only process the difference in power between their respective sources or loads and that most of the power does not need to be processed by any converter at all, leading to efficiency gains. The novelty of this project’s implementation is that control of individual converters can be decentralized, leading to higher reliability and lower costs.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.