Self-Balancing Supercapacitor Energy Storage System Based on a Modular Multilevel Converter

Fernando Davalos Hernandez, Rahim Samanbakhsh, Federico Martin Ibanez and Fernando Martin
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Fernando Davalos Hernandez: Department of Electrical Engineering, Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, 143026 Moscow, Russia
Rahim Samanbakhsh: Department of Electrical Engineering, Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, 143026 Moscow, Russia
Federico Martin Ibanez: Department of Electrical Engineering, Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, 143026 Moscow, Russia
Fernando Martin: CEIT-Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), Manuel Lardizabal 15, 20018 Donostia, Spain

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-19

Abstract: Energy Storage Systems (ESS) are an attractive solution in environments with a high amount of renewable energy sources, as they can improve the power quality in such places and if required, can extend the integration of more renewable sources of energy. If a large amount of power is needed, then supercapacitors are viable energy storage devices due to their specific power, allowing response times that are in the range of milliseconds to seconds. This paper details the design of an ESS that is based on a modular multilevel converter (MMC) with bidirectional power flow, which reduces the number of cascaded stages and allows the supercapacitors SCs to be connected to the grid to perform high-power transfers. A traditional ESS has four main stages or subsystems: the energy storage device, the balancing system, and the DC/DC and DC/AC converters. The proposed ESS can perform all of those functions in a single circuit by adopting an MMC topology, as each submodule (SM) can self-balance during energy injection or grid absorption. This article analyses the structure in both power flow directions and in the control loops and presents a prototype that is used to validate the design.

Keywords: renewable energy sources; supercapacitors; energy storage system (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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