Multi-Port Energy Router in Mobile Energy Storage for Emergency Power Outage in Urban Cities

Abstract

A multi-port energy router (MER) is an important infrastructure for power management and energy storage after an unexpected power outage. In addition, MERs can relate to various emergency electric power sources (EEPSs) and power grids at the same time. Moreover, by putting an MER in mobile energy storage, an MER allows for more flexible energy management and regulation in urban cities. This paper proposes a new topology of MERs composed of a bidirectional AC/DC converter and a partial power processing-based triple active bridge (PPP-based TAB) converter to supply emergency power for an unexpected power outage. This design of an MER improves the power efficiency significantly to realize peer-to-peer (P2P) trading which realizes the bidirectional power transmission among the main power grid, EEPSs such as the battery of electric vehicles (EV), and clients’ loads. The control methods of the power transmission of two power electronic converters in MER are also illustrated in this paper to realize the power transmission among the main power grid, clients’ loads, and EEPSs. This allows any power source connected to the MER to be used as an input or output to receive or send out power, which greatly improves the utilization of power. In conclusion, the MATLAB/Simulink and experiment test are executed and meticulously presented to validate the practicality of the proposed configuration.