Development and Applicability Analysis of
Intelligent Solid State Transformer
WANG Hui1TAN Xing-guo1LI Qing-min1
1.School of Electrical Engineering, Shandong
University, Jinan 250061, China
E-mail: sddlwh@sdu.edu.cn,
tanxingguo1981@126.com
AbstractThe development of intelligent power grid
provides a broad market to power electronic equipment.
Compared with conventional transformer, intelligent solid
state transformer(ISST) is pursuing smart control feature
by power electronic converters and comprehensive
controlling technology, which aims at voltage regulation,
power transmission, isolation, and power quality
improvement, etc. This paper analyzed the development of
ISST. It highlights the design and application problems of
power electronic device, bi-directional DC/DC converter
topology and high-frequency transformer. It gives the
fundamental terms for further design of ISST. And the
future development directions of ISST are also discussed.
Keywords-Intelligent Solid State Transformer(ISST);
Power Electronic Device; DC-DC Converter; High-frequency
Transformer;
I. INTRODUCTION
Intelligent Solid State Transformer(ISST), also
named Power Electronic Transformer(PET), Electronic
Power Transformer(EPT), or Intelligent Universal
Transformer(IUT), is a new type of transformer based on
high power electronic conversion, which aims at voltage
regulation, power transmission, isolation, and power
quality improvement of power grid[1]-[7]. It will become
an important smart device for the development of
intelligent power grid.
Compared with conventional transformer, ISST has no
50/60Hz line frequency transformer which remains bulky
physical size and weight. Instead, ISST is pursuing smart
control feature by power electronic converters, high
frequency transformer and comprehensive controlling
Project Supported by State Grid of China (DL71-09-010) and
Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation (2009ZRB01364).
978-1-4577-0365-2/11/$26.00 2011 IEEE
ZHOU Fei 2, DENG Zhan-feng 2
2. China Electric Power Research Institute,
Beijing, 100192, China
LI Zhen-he3, LU Nan3
3.Shandong Laiwu Steel Co. Laiwu, 271104, China
technology. It overcomes the problems such as
environmental concerns regarding mineral oil, sensitive to
harmonics, protection of the system from problems
arising at or beyond the transformer, voltage drop on
load, etc. It has smart elements with function of
diagnostics, protection, flexible adjustment. In addition, it
is convenient to communicate with power grid. ISST also
can improve power quality and integrate kinds of AC and
DC distribution power source with the flexibility of
power electronics switching [8]-[14]. Consequently, it
has better application prospect not only in intelligent
power grid but also in the field of telecom and aerospace.
Hence, ISST has a broad application perspective in
power system, and is an advanced research topic as the
basic smart device in electrical power transmission and
distribution system. Based on a comprehensive view of
nowadays development of ISST, this paper analyzes the
existing design and application problems of ISST in detail
and proposes the methods to solve these problems.
II. REVIEW OF PRESENT RESEARCH ON ISST
The original aim of research ISST was to reduce the
volume and weight of traditional transformer. ISST was
first proposed by American naval laboratory in 1980[1].
The Electric Power Research Institute(EPRI) was
developing the research from 1995[2][12]. So far,
supported by some company such as ABB and Emerson
Electric, University of Missouri, University of Wisconsin
Madison, Texas A&M University toward University of
Virginia Tech(VT) are all engaged in the study of ISST.
Kinds of ISST prototypes have been built which had the
ability of transform voltages and power quality
enhancement function, such as voltage sag compensation
and maintain unity input power factor. All the ISST
prototypes, however, did not step into practical
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applications and bi-direction energy flowing [3]-[9][11].
This paper illustrates two relatively progressive
prototypes, one is 2.4kV/240V/120V 20kVA single-phase
ISST designed by University of Virginia Tech, the other
is 15kV/240V/120V 100kVA single-phase ISST designed
by EPRI.
A. Circuit Topology
According to the demand of DC link inverter, ISST
is classified into two groups, AC-AC ISST and
AC-DC-AC ISST. The most feasible configuration of
ISST now is AC-DC-AC topology because of the control
performance and medium voltage DC bus available.
AC-DC-AC topology has better controlling of voltages
and currents both on the primary side and secondary side
of high frequency transformer. It is also possible to
improve the voltage level especially by series or parallel
power electronics modules. The prototypes mentioned
above 20kVA ISST(showing as Fig.1) and 100kVA
ISST(showing as Fig.2) all adapted this converter
topology.
Fig.1 Main Circuit Topology of 20kVA ISST Prototype[11]
Fig.2 Main Circuit Topology of 100kVA ISST Prototype[12]
For example, multiple cascaded modulated converter
is designed for AC-DC converter and DC-DC
converter(Fig.3). It can overcome the problem of
maintaining input voltage balance among different
modules which were series-connected input
parallel-connected output[5]. The modules are packaged
with S-GTO(Super-Gate Turn-Off ) and SiC switching
devices. Four cascaded H-bridges convert 8.66kV 60Hz
AC into 3.5 kV DC at near unity power factor. Then the
DC-DC converter converted 3.5 kV DC signal into 400V
DC by inverter, high frequency transformer and rectifier.
The outputs of diode H-bridges are connected in parallel
to achieve the desired power level[12].
Fig.3 Multilevel Converters Circuit Topology of 100kVA ISST[12]
B. Analysis of Apllication
AC-DC-AC ISST adopts three-stage unit which is
more convenient to connect modules series or parallel.
This topology possess basic conditions to apply ISST in
distribute power system under the power and breakdown
voltage of switching device. There are two primary
directions of AC-DC-AC ISST topology in present day.
One is multilevel converters, such as Fig.1. The other is
cascaded modulated converter. High level switching
device is demanded because the voltage grade is higher in
primary side of transformer. To solve the problem high
voltage and power SiC device is applied which has better
switching performance and also the switching devices
connected series or parallel is designed. As the modulated
converter increased, the switching frequency can be lower
and output wave is more quality. But it also brings
problems such as complex structure and controlling
difficulty.
III. APPLICABILITY ANALYSIS OF INTELLIGENT SOLID
STATE TRANSFORMER
There are still many problems unsolved for ISST
design and application despite of the nearly thirty years
research work. The paper will highlight the design and
and
application problems in aspects of power electronic
1151
device, bi-directional DC/DC converter topology and
high-frequency transformer.
A. Power Electronic Device
Power electronic device, which has advantages such
as high power, high switching frequency, low loss and
high breakdown voltage, is favorite on ISST design.
Full-controlled high-power switching device IGBT or
GTO are widely used. Most of converter is multi-level or
cascade structure because of the low breakdown voltage
of single switching device. The prototype showing in
Fig.1 used multilevel IGBT module EPRI60A18KV in
AC-DC converter. Fig.4 showed the individual device
switching characteristic at 2kV, 20A[11].
Fig.4 Switching Characteristic of an individual device and
Photograph of EPRI60A18KV [11]
With fast growth of thin films and device
manufacture techniques, SiC power device has developed
rapidly in recent years which provide high-temperature,
highly-reliable, high-power characteristics and will
probably substitute Si power electronic device. The
prototype showing in Fig.2 is now trying to design
converter circuit with SGTO devices and SiC based
Schottky diodes. It provides low-loss, highly-reliable,
low-stress circuits, also employs external natural
air-cooling[12].
B. DC-DC Converter
DC-DC converter design is largely affected by the
power of switching device. For example, if 7.2KV AC is
rectified into 12KV DC as input signal of the next
DC-DC converter, some practical method must be
provided because the voltage is too high to power
electronic device although normal H bridge converter can
meet the demand. Another problem is higher the
transmission power is, larger the current in second side of
high-frequency transformer will be because of the low
1152
output voltage, such as 400V. So break current of
switching device in second side is also need to consider.
In the above two prototypes, diodes rectifiers circuit were
designed in which the energy could not flow bi-direction.
Hence bi-direction DC-DC converter is one of the most
important units to realize kinds of functions of ISST.
Research work and application of bi-direction DC-DC
converter will be discussed. Based on the power of
switching device and I/O voltages, DC-DC converter
used in ISST has several topologies below.
1) Dual Active Bridge(DAB) DC-DC Converter
Full control H bridge converter is designed in both
primary side and secondary side of high frequency
transformer in DAB topology. Now there are two kinds of
topology which are single stage DC-DC converter and
multi-stage DAB in series.
Input voltage for every DAB DC-DC converter will
decrease along with the number of unit. Also the output
currents will be reduced relatively. Considering the
problems of cost, control and reliability, there are some
limits to the number of cascade converter. Consequently
single DC-DC circuit will bear higher DC voltage.
Number of switching devices can be in series or parallel
connected to improve the ability of bearing high voltage
or current. If the number of cascade modules is N, whole
equivalent carrier frequency is N*fc, where fc is the
carrier frequency of single circuit. As a result, harmonic
of output voltage is lower. And it has high energy quality.
Higher energy can be transmitted in this topology
compared with dual half bridge DC-DC converter.
However DAB circuit need more switching device. And
complex control strategy and not suitable for excessive
cascade are also its disadvantages.
With the development of new SiC power device, it is
possible to use high power and high frequency single
DC-DC converter. Researchers in power electronic
systems laboratory in Switzerland and Tokyo institute of
technology in department of electrical and electronic
engineering Japan choose SiC JFET cascode for DAB
DC-DC converter[15]. The input DC voltage was 5KV,
output voltage is 700V, and transformer ratio is 8:1. The
high frequency transformer operated at 50kHz switching
frequency. Along with the increase of frequency, the core
and switching device loss ought to increase. For the high
switching performance of SiC JFET cascade, however,
the whole loss of this prototype is lower than before.
2) Dual Half Bridge(DHB) DC-DC Converter
Full control half bridge converter is designed in both
primary side and secondary side of high frequency
transformer in DHB topology. Compared with DAH
DC-DC converter, it has the advantage of low cost, only
half switching device needed, also driven circuit simply
and no DC magnetic bias phenomena. More modules can
be cascaded.
Fig.5 shows the topology which is based on the
DHB DC-DC converter. Input high DC voltage is 12KV,
output DC voltage is 400V. Input and output voltages of
each module are chosen as 500 V and 400 V respectively.
In order to interface with the 12 kV DC voltage from
rectifier unit, twenty four modules were cascaded which
adopts phase-shift technique to
zero-voltage-switching(ZVS) operation mode. It is in
either direction of power flow while keeping low
switching loss and conduction loss [16].
Fig.5 Dual-half-bridge Bi-direction DC-DC Converter[16]
The most popular phase-shift ZVS topologies are
DAB and DHB DC-DC converter. For DHB circuit, it
only has half magnetic hysteresis loop of DAB and less
core loss under the condition of same switching
frequency and core area of transformer.
3) Dual Full-Half Bridge(DFHB) DC-DC Converter
Fig.6 shows the one of a DFHB topology which is
the derivative of DAB and DHB. It combine the
advantage of transmission high power of full bridge in
primary side and few switching device needed of half
bridge in second side of transformer . All the switches in
the converter can implement turn-on under ZVS[17].
Fig.6 H-bridge Half-bridge Bi-direction DC-DC Converter[17]
4) Multilevel DC-DC Converter
Recent prevailing multilevel converter is a practical
utilization in fact to resolve conflicts between high
voltage on the primary side of transformer and low
breakdown voltage of switching device. Typical
topologies are diode-clamped multilevel inverter,
realize
flying-capacitor multilevel inverter, cascaded multilevel
inverter and their derivative[18].
Multilevel converter has been becoming research
hotspot in high-voltage and high-power applications
because of their low voltage stressed on switching device,
low harmonic and low EMI output. If voltage increase,
however, multilevel topology and control method will
complicated which will reduce the reliability of the
system. Multilevel circuit is useful for the application of
single-stage high-voltage DC-DC converters.
C. High Frequency Transformer
According to the operated frequency, there are three
kinds of transformer which are traditional transformer
worked at 50Hz or 60Hz, medium transformer worked at
50Hz to 20kHz, high frequency transformer worked
above 20kHz. Medium or high frequency transformers
are popular in DC-DC unit of ISST system. Higher the
transformer operated, smaller the transformers size and
weight are as well as ISST under certain current density
and magnetic flux. High frequency, however, bring the
improvement of core loss which can be lower when
magnetic flux is reduced. Optimal relationship between
frequency and magnetic flux is required. At the same time
it should be give consideration on switching loss of power
electronic device so as to obtain optimum control effect.
The most popular magnetic materials used on transformer
are soft ferrites magnet oxidation body, permalloy alloy
and amorphous alloy. The core loss of Manganese Zinc
1153
Ferrite is normally 80-100Kw/m500kHz50mT at
80-100C. Nanocry stalline or amorphous alloy bodies
of transformer developed in recent thirty years. These
materials have characteristics such as high saturation
magnetic induction, low core loss, reliable magnetic
performance and better property on high temperature
which have broad applications in electronic equipment
operated at medium or high frequency.
High frequency transformers are normally utilized in
ISST system because single transformer could not meet
the power requirement. The prototypes mentioned above
all adopt this structure. It must balance the currents or
voltages of series or parallel modules. But these problems
do not exist in single transformer system. Hence only
using single high frequency transformer in DC-DC unit of
ISST is one of the most important techniques.
IV. FUTURE DEVELOPMENT OF ISST
New demand has been put forward to design and
apply ISST for the development of intelligent power grid.
ISST will be widely used in transmission and distribution
systems and become one of the key smart devices.
Besides function of transmission, isolation and converter,
ISST in the future has potential and feasibility to solve the
problems such as power quality, distribution automation
and monitoring power system, etc. And it will realize the
function of smart protection, data collection and
transmission. With development of new switching device
and design technology of ISST, three-phase ISST will
substitute single phase ISST as well as the overall energy
flow will be bi-directional.
V. CONCLUSION
1 This paper briefly reviews the development and
research works of ISST.
2 The paper highlights the design and application
problems in aspects of power electronic device,
bi-directional DC/DC converter topology and
high-frequency transformer. It should be noticed that
switching device with high energy density and low loss
is one of the most key factors for ISST application. Also
with advances in bi-direction DC-DC converter power, it
is possible that ISST might become economically smart
equipment. The applications of high frequency
transformer were also indicated.
3 New development directions of ISST are discussed
1154
based on the results.
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