DC-DC charge controller and voltage regulator for DC grid

Abstract

DC to DC conversion technology has progressed very rapidly and has been widely used in industrial applications such as DC motor drives, computer systems and communication equipments [1] as well as residential loads. In areas that makes use of renewable energy sources such as the solar and wind energy, the voltage, current and frequency generated by these sources would fluctuate. In order to integrate the power generated into the DC grid for effective use, a DC to DC converter is necessary to regulate the frequency and also control the voltage output generated to the required level.

The output voltage of the DC to DC converter can be adjusted simply by changing the switching duty cycle of a gating scheme such as pulse width modulation. Depending on whether a step up or step down voltage output is required, a suitable converter topology can be adopted [2].

The operating principles of the different converter topologies such as the Buck, Boost and the Buck/Boost topologies were investigated in this report for the regulation of bus voltage.

Simulations and testing were done and it was shown that the implementation of the Buck/Boost converter allows the efficient control of bus voltage close to the desired level.