Zagres Ltd - Study, assessment and proof of market potentials and economics of a new Gallium Nitride inverter technology for domestic energy storage applications

无论是在国内还是工业层面，能源存储对于实现可再生能源发电的更大渗透和智能电网的发展，以及减少对化石燃料调峰电厂的需求都至关重要。根据低碳创新组织2012年8月发布的技术创新需求评估（TINA），英国需要27.4吉瓦的并网储能才能实现其2050年的碳减排目标。鉴于目前的装机容量不足3GW，主要由大型抽水蓄能（PHS）主导，实现这一容量相当雄心勃勃。在英国扩展小灵通的空间有限，因此需要探索其他存储选择。tina预测，并网家庭储能（GCD ES）可以为实现2050年的目标做出重要贡献，相当于200万户家庭装机容量达10吉瓦。大多数GCD ES解决方案都是基于电池及其相关的交直流电力电子逆变器。现有的电池和逆变器技术价格昂贵且效率低，阻碍了GCD ES的广泛采用。商业上可用的储能逆变器是由硅基绝缘栅双极晶体管（Si-IGBT）器件制成的，这种器件价格昂贵，效率适中。逆变器是GCD ES系统的主要组成部分，因此，其成本的降低和效率的提高将直接影响系统的经济性和净“能源成本”。从剑桥大学工程系分离出来的Zagres开发了一种基于氮化镓高电子迁移率晶体管（GaNHEMT）器件的新逆变器技术，该技术有望比基于Si-IGBT的逆变器有重大改进；它的开发可以降低储能逆变器的成本和尺寸，提高功率转换效率，有助于实现更具成本效益的储能系统。

Energy storage, both on domestic and industrial levels, is vital in enabling greater penetrationof renewable electricity generation and development of smart grids, and to reduce the need forfossil fuel peaking plants. According to a Technology Innovation Needs Assessment (TINA)by the Low Carbon Innovation Group published in Aug 2012, 27.4 GW of grid-connectedenergy storage is needed to enable UK achieving its carbon reduction targets for 2050.Realising this capacity is rather ambitious given today’s installed capacity being less than 3GW, mainly dominated by large-scale pumped hydro storage (PHS). There is limited space toexpand PHS in the UK, so other options for storage need to be explored. Grid-connecteddomestic energy storage (GCD ES) can offer an important contribution to realising 2050targets, as much as 10 GW equivalent to two million household installations, predicted byTINA.The majority of GCD ES solutions are based on batteries and their associated AC-DC powerelectronics inverters. Existing battery and inverter technologies are expensive and have lowefficiency, preventing widespread adoption of GCD ES. Commercially available inverters forenergy storage applications are made from Silicon-based Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (Si-IGBT) devices, which are costly and have moderate efficiency. The inverter is a majorcomponent of a GCD ES system and hence, its cost reduction and efficiency improvementwill directly affect the system economics and net ‘cost of energy’.Zagres, spun out from Cambridge University Engineering Department, has developed a newinverter technology based on Gallium Nitride High-Electron-Mobility Transistor (GaNHEMT) devices, which promises significant improvements over Si-IGBT based inverters; itsexploitation can reduce the cost and size of energy storage inverters and increase powerconversion efficiency, contributing towards achieving more cost-effective energy storagesystems.