Advanced Energy STorage and Regeneration System for Enhanced Energy Management

Project Information

ESTEEM

Grant agreement ID: 755485

DOI

10.3030/755485

Project closed

EC signature date 11 May 2017

Start date 1 July 2017

End date 31 December 2021

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Smart, Green And Integrated Transport

Total cost

€ 826 432,50

EU contribution

€ 826 432,00

Coordinated by

THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - ESTEEM (Advanced Energy STorage and Regeneration System for Enhanced Energy Management )

Reporting period: 2020-07-01 to 2021-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The concept of ESTEEM is to design and manufacture an innovative Energy Storage and Regenerative System (ESRS) consisting of Electrical Power Distribution System (SEPDC) and embedded SuperCapacitors (SCs) Energy Storage Device (ESD) to demonstrate the concept of Enhanced Electrical Energy Management on controlling the power requirements of a regenerative ElectroMechanical Actuator (EMA) load and hence reduce generator overloading and transient stress. The main objectives of ESTEEM were:

o Identified the ESRS system components, design specifications and core requirements in terms of power ratings, power density, control, safety, communication protocol, cooling and energy management of a regenerative EMA and Enhanced Electrical Energy Management (E2-EM) functionalities.
o Performed a trade-off studies and conceptual designs of the ESRS components.
o Developed a set of functional and behavioural level models of the ESRS demonstrator components.
o Designed and developed a novel DC/DC converter (structure/topology) for interfacing the supercapacitors ESD with the SEPDC and with the capability of rapid change of operating mode from buck to boost and vice versa.
o Selected the supercapacitor technology which will achieve the best trade-off between energy and power density, power loss, maintenance free operation, component life time and safety. An innovative supercapacitors ESD thermal management was designed and assembled.
o Developed an advanced, intelligent, and adaptive control algorithm for the DC/DC converter.
o Designed and developed an EMA load emulator.
o Developed an innovative energy management strategy for the ESRS. The optimal reference power of the DC/DC converter was determined by the energy management supervisor.
o To transform the developed smart energy management strategy to a firmware for the supervisor computational core. Simulation based approaches was developed.
o Manufactured the ESRS system components and assembled the overall system.
o Demonstrated and tested the functionalities of the developed ESRS components, the developed energy management strategy, the E2-EM functionalities and to investigate the performance and power quality of the SEPDC during regeneration and transient variations of loads under the control of the “Iron Bird” as well as in autonomous control mode.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

o An understanding and development of the scope of works was defined, including identifying design specifications for the SCs unit, and matching the interfacing converter and the SCs design requirements.
o Electrostatic double-layer capacitor (EDLC) technology was selected for building the SCs unit. The SCs unit is designed using a 350F cell from Maxwell.
o Methods for SCs stack energy managements and cell voltage balancing were reviewed and evaluated. Simple and efficient scheme is identified and under development.
o Thermal modelling and losses calculations of the DC/DC converter and the SCs unit were carried out for the purpose of achieving effective thermal management for SCs energy storage system. The SCs cell thermal model was developed using test data captured from laboratory tests where the power losses of the SCs was measured and the temperature change was monitored.
o Different DC/DC converter topologies together with different semiconductor devices were considered for ESTEEM trade-off study. Two phase interleaved DC/DC converter topology with GaN semiconductor devices was decided and designed.
o Trade-off study of different schemes for EMA emulation was carried out and a simple electronic EMA emulator topology was chosen, where a controlled resistor load was used to emulate the motoring action, and a small controlled capacitors based energy storage unit was selected to emulate the regenerative action of the EMA emulator.
o Sliding mode control approach was used for the control of the DC/DC converter of the SC energy storage system and the EMA emulator system.
o Functional and behavioural models of the system components, SCs, DC/DC converter and EMA emulator were developed in Matlab.
o Preliminary studies into smart energy management and SEPDC configuration, and firmware definition and communication protocol were performed. The E2-EM strategy for ESTEEM ESS system was designed and validated by simulation. The E2-EM algorithm was implemented using Simulink/Matlab models and the simulation results obtained showed that the effective use of the SC unit energy storage smoothed the generator current and hence reduced the overloading.
o The ESTEEM supervisor consisting of a finite state automaton was designed. The Matlab models of the ESTEEM system and the supervisor were integrated using co-simulation approaches, in order to verify the overall E2-EM energy management strategies. Different testing scenarios were carried out to validate the correctness of the developed E2-EM and the supervisor design against the system requirements.
o Automatic code generation of the supervisor for the ESTEEM DSP board (Zynq®-7000 family) was performed using Matlab Embed Coder Support package. The firmware was updated and code was refined in period 2.
o Detailed design of the converters and initial circuit board design was concluded with the CDR.
o Hardware in the Loop testing and validations was performed and Work package 5 was completed.
o Converters were manufactured and these activities were disrupted by Covid with premises being closed.
- Super Capacitor ESD and monitoring system with the communication protocols and network have been completed.
-The testing and validation of system assembly of internal components along with delivery to Iron bird for final assembly was completed.
-Optimization and support after delivery was also accomplished.
-Project Management activities were completed.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

ESTEEM delivered a number of ground breaking achievements beyond state-of-the-art to enable successful development of a novel EPDS concept by delivery of an innovative ESRS demonstrator based on supercapacitors energy storage with its interfacing DC/DC converter for on-fly change of operational mode (buck/boost) compatible with the Enhanced Electrical Energy Management concept. The project also developed an intelligent energy management strategy and corresponding algorithms for smart control of regenerative EMA load and minimising the stress on generators. A communication protocol with smart supervisor algorithm was developed for interfacing the ESRS with the 'Iron Bird' system. The expected project results will contribute towards the competitiveness of the European providers by achieving a significant weight, cost and fuel burn saving for future more-electric aircraft whilst ensuring reliable, effective, safe and low-maintenance operation. With the peak-smoothing functionality of ESTEEM, it could save up to 15% of the weight of the main electrical generator.

ESTEEM Team and Integrated Product