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Highly efficient and trustworthy electronics, components and systems for the next generation energy supply infrastructure

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - PROGRESSUS (Highly efficient and trustworthy electronics, components and systems for the next generation energy supply infrastructure)

Berichtszeitraum: 2022-04-01 bis 2023-09-30

The European Commission targets of 30% reduction by 2030 fall well below a trajectory to meet the Paris Climate goals and a great boost towards a zero-emission society is required. A deep structural change of the energy systems is currently taking place through the integration of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) and Energy Storage Systems (ESS) into a decentralised power system, targeting to improve efficiency, flexibility, and robustness. The transformation of the energy sector aims to provide secure, affordable and sustainable energy supplies to the consumers through the creation of a fully integrated and highly efficient internal energy market. The modernization shall not only boost the entire economy making it more energy- and resource-efficient, but also provide a healthier environment for the citizens and make the “A Clean Planet for all” vision a reality.
In this context, the PROGRESSUS project aimed to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions related to mobility and grid power generation by at least 30%, compared to state-of-the-art at project start. This ambitious target should be met through the design and development of a series of technologies and methodologies in order to enable and support a wide-spread diffusion of electromobility. In parallel, use cases that combine the PROGRESSUS achievements should be deployed in order to validate the targeted reduction of greenhouse gas emission and demonstrate the reduction of peak power consumption from the grid.
The great success of PROGRESSUS was confirmed during the evaluation in testbeds for four use cases
- UC1: Flexibility management, smart charging and grid utilization optimization with improved resilience
- UC2: EV high-power charging infrastructure
- UC3: Promotion of cooperation among buildings in self-organized microgrids
- UC4: Intelligent DC microgrids embedding innovative modular power converters and providing grid services.
It is based on valuable achievements at power conversion, energy management as well as metrology and monitoring levels. Note, the following achievements are compared to state-of-the-art technologies at project start.
(a) Power conversion
The high power power conversion circuits for the ultrafast charging stations in SiC offer the potential to reduce the converter losses by about 30% at full load. The developed fast charger module based on GaN reduces energy losses by 50% compared with silicon-based solutions. The developed EV charger with the reconfigurable power converter and embedded storage achieves more than 65% reduction on peak power drawn from the grid, at the same time resulting in lower cost (-20%), smaller size (-30%) and lower conversion losses (-20%).
Regarding bidirectional and modular EV charging, PROGRESSUS achieved the targeted peak efficiency of the bidirectional power converter of 95%. The development of the charging station led to a peak load reduction by a minimum of 20%. For the modular power converter, PROGRESSUS achieved a reduction in power losses of 50%. The DC charging station can achieve a 30% reduction in power losses.
(b) Energy management
PROGRESSUS improved the DC microgrid management for efficient energy and service provision. Reduction of losses for the internal power distribution in DC microgrid with respect to AC microgrid by 20% was achieved. Grid variation levels of power exchange and voltage could be reduced by 10%. At the same time, exchanges among DC microgrid clusters were increased by 10%.
Furthermore, PROGRESSUS provided extended cooperative energy management scheme for microgrids. Utilizing the developed machine learning, blockchain based solutions to a multi-microgrid case and integrate the algorithms into a platform, the innovative energy management scheme for microgrids allows to achieve an additional 15% of peak demand reduction, 20% of CO2 emission reduction, 25% reduction of storage needs and 35% profitability increase.
(c) Metrology and monitoring
PROGRESSUS provided enhanced sensing technologies and methodologies. PROGRESSUS achieved a 10 times faster Hall sensor with a bandwidth of at least 10MHz. The enhanced TMR sensors allow current measurements on straight current paths for easier system integration and support pre-calibration and offset correction. The design of compressed sensing based data processing can decrease the figure of merit power/bandwidth by a factor 10. The developed AC/DC converter for sensing applications achieved an increased conversion efficiency by about 20%. In addition, the developed energy harvester decreased the consumption of the AC/DC converter by 15-20% for no-load and close to no-load conditions.
The introduction of advanced security measures for plug-and-play components in self-organized networks was based on state-of-the-art secure elements and blockchain technologies. This allows the development of intelligent sensor network software solutions for measuring physical parameters and controlling grid-connected devices.
PROGRESSUS achieved platforms for accelerated scheduling and predictive monitoring. The developed hardware accelerated task scheduling for real-time systems utilizing deadline-based algorithms provides increased safety, predictability, robustness and performance compared to software-based solutions. The developed predictive maintenance monitoring platform achieves increased service availability and optimized maintenance costs resulting in reduced ownership costs by at least 15% for smart grid specific infrastructure.
Validation and verification of the project results in the test beds of the four use cases confirmed the expected innovations. The overall objective of a peak demand reduction from the grid of at least 30% is achieved. The solutions developed by PROGRESSUS contribute significantly to the reduction of the peak demand from the distribution grid.
There is a potential of 252 million passenger cars in the European Union of which a large amount has to be electrified. PROGRESSUS solutions pave the way to the mandatory powerful, affordable energy supply infrastructure.
According to Yole, more energy efficient, reliable power electronics alone have the potential to reduce the world’s electricity consumption by some 20-30% by 2025. The PROGRESSUS high efficiency power converters are a key contribution to achieve these savings. Innovative approaches like “Energy and Mobility as a Service” enabled by decentralized energy and grid management infrastructure promote the decarbonisation of the mobility and the increase of renewable energy sources (RESs) in the national energy mixes, resulting in a positive feedback in terms of Corporate Social Responsibility and Industrial Sustainability.
The PROGRESSUS consortium covers the complete supply and application chain. This ensures excellent exploitation and dissemination capabilities for the developed innovations. It strengthens education, employment potential and market position of European companies and organizations in the key technology fields of semiconductor, power electronics and de-centralized networks for the next generation smart grid. Industrial partners expect increased employment in R&D and manufacturing. PROGRESSUS will accelerate the move to the next generation smart grid and help to decrease primary energy demand. At the same time, PROGRESSUS pushes capabilities to implement the EU energy strategy 2030 and achieve its targets faster.
Concept of the PROGRESSUS approach to facilitate local grids