IEEE Electrification Magazine - June 2016 - 4

VIeWPOInT

The dc Revolution
By Ewan Pritchard, Daniel C. Gregory, and Srdjan Srdic

ITH THE ADVENT OF
advanced power electronics, distributed renewable
generation, and direct-current (dc)
distribution, the power industry has
been anticipating a massive revolution in the way power is used in the
United States. Although this expected
local shift has been gradual to date, it
may be approaching quickly and quietly from the periphery. According to a
recent report from Navigant Research,
the dc product marketplace is expected to total US$33 billion between 2015
and 2024 in four key market segments: off- and bad-grid telecommunications, data centers, commercial
buildings, and off-grid military operations. A similar developing trend is
taking place in the microgrid market,
where a study by Markets and Markets forecasts a US$35 billion annual
marketplace by 2022. With such a
wide open market, power industry
experts are all left wondering: What
percentage of these microgrids will be
alternating current (ac) or hybrid ac-
dc? Will one of these trends loosen
the firm grip that ac has in our legacy
system? If this grip loosens, will it
spread as fast as cell phones and
mobile computing?
The major trends that are driving
this shift to dc include
1) transportation electrification
2) the developing world

W

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MELE.2016.2544018
Date of publication: 31 May 2016

4

IE E E E l e c t r i f i c ati o n M agaz ine / j un e 2016

3) military operations
4) telecommunications
5) data centers.

Transportation electrification
Shipboard power, electrified rail, diesel locomotives, and submarine
power systems have been using dc
for the past century. However, recent
advances in power electronics have
required each of these industries to
respond. Traditional power engineers
have substantial intellectual investment in frequency-based control; as
a result, they use frequency imbalances to signal when net power
transfer does not match. On the
other hand, modern transportation
power engineers control the system

by monitoring voltages (and, thus,
field excitation).
The Centre for Solar Energy and
Hydrogen Research in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, claims that the
number of electric vehicles (EVs)
worldwide more than doubled in
2015, bringing the total on the road
to more than 1,300,000. In electric
and hybrid vehicles, the Centre's
automotive engineers at Tesla, Nissan, Toyota, Mitsubishi, BYD, BMW,
Ford, and General Motors are building small dc microgrids, by the
thousands, with unparalleled safety
systems. The transportation engineer now has the ability to better
control the loads, essentially throttling back on the power demand as

Figure 1. The plug-in hybrid developed at North Carolina State University operates as a
380-Vdc microgrid. (Photo courtesy of North Carolina State University's FREEDM Systems
Center.)



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Electrification Magazine - June 2016

IEEE Electrification Magazine - June 2016 - Cover1
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IEEE Electrification Magazine - June 2016 - 1
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IEEE Electrification Magazine - June 2016 - Cover3
IEEE Electrification Magazine - June 2016 - Cover4
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_december2022
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_september2022
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_june2022
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_march2022
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_december2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_september2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_june2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_march2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_december2020
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_september2020
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_june2020
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_march2020
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_december2019
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_september2019
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_june2019
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_march2019
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_december2018
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_september2018
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_june2018
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_december2017
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_september2017
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_march2018
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_june2017
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_march2017
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_june2016
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_december2016
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_september2016
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_december2015
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_march2016
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_march2015
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_june2015
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_september2015
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_march2014
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_june2014
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_september2014
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_december2014
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_december2013
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_september2013
https://www.nxtbookmedia.com