I-Corps: Highly Scalable Differential Power Processing Architecture

这个i-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是为光伏和数据中心等潜在市场开发更高效的电力处理和输送方案。当太阳能电池板只有一部分被遮挡时，典型的太阳能装置可能远远达不到收集入射电能的目的。该项目将利用一种尚未在该行业成功商业化的架构。成功实施将意味着更好地利用太阳能装置，拥有更小、更便宜的电力电子设备，有助于美国电网的脱碳。对于数据中心，必须将电源从高电压直流母线降低到许多低电压CPU负载，从而导致显著损耗。在这种情况下，建议的功率处理方案可以产生更低的损耗，从而在这个日益耗能的应用领域实现更高的效率和成本节约。该i-Corps项目基于为差分功率处理架构开发的可扩展控制方案，该方案降低了成本，并可能促进采用。建议的架构利用许多(较小、较轻且可能较便宜的)电源转换器，以使用差分电源处理(DPP)更好地优化电源利用率。传统的方法可能会使用一个大功率转换器来处理电力，但最终不会收集/提供最大可利用的电力。DPP架构的关键优势在于，各个功率转换器只处理各自电源或负载之间的功率差异，而且大部分功率根本不需要由任何转换器处理，从而提高了效率。该项目实施的新奇之处在于，可以分散对单个转换器的控制，从而实现更高的可靠性和更低的成本。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.