LVDC electrical distribution in modern buildings
File(s)
Author(s)
Laudani, Giuseppe Attilio
Type
Thesis
Abstract
The use of DC current for transmitting, distributing, and supplying electrical energy to final users is a very old topic in the field of electrical engineering, dating back to late nineteenth century. In fact, it traces back to the famous “War of currents” that saw Thomas Edison (1847-1931) against George Westinghouse, in the conceptual battle related to the best way for transmitting electrical energy over long distances. Edison advocated the use of DC energy, while Westinghouse was a supporter of AC current, because he was well aware of the crucial benefits of important discoveries such as the transformer by Nikola Tesla and the AC machine by Galileo Ferraris. In fact, electrical energy produced by using AC machines could have been raised in terms of voltage magnitude and being transmitted over long distances with much lower losses than DC current. The advantage obtained by the discoveries of Tesla and Ferraris, made AC become the standard way for distributing electrical energy for decades up to nowadays. Nonetheless, the big progress in the field of electrical energy conversion from the beginning of the twentieth century, especially after the invention of the transistor, paved the way to the comeback of DC current as a more effective way for electrical energy transmission. This topic is recently one of the most interesting in the field of electrical engineering with extensive research all over the world. This thesis wants to just introduce research and professional people into this challenging and fascinating field, by showing some significant results and advantages of a topic that is going to become predominant in the electrical engineering sector, and that will surely affect people’s lives in the years to come. The thesis is constituted of five chapters, which describe the following topics: introduction to LVDC, for getting acquainted with the fascinating world of DC electricity, integration of DERs in buildings, which deals with the issues relative to users also becoming producers of electricity thanks to the integration of DERs in microgrids (mostly AC nowadays, but more DC in future), the control strategies for DC microgrids, which mainly describes the control of the microgrid as a whole, thanks to the SCADA approach. The last two chapters show the results from the simulation of the DC microgrid implemented in MATLAB/Simulink, and the conclusions and future developments.
Version
Open Access
Date Issued
2017-07
Date Awarded
2018-03
Copyright Statement
Attribution NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence (CC BY-ND)
Advisor
Mitcheson, Paul
Publisher Department
Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Publisher Institution
Imperial College London
Qualification Level
Doctoral
Qualification Name
Master of Philosophy (MPhil)