sponsored FeATUre u Cover story
DC EnErgy MEtEring AppliCAtions
By Luca Martini, System Engineer, Analog Devices, Inc.
Why IS DC EnErgy MEtErIng IMportAnt? In the 21st century, world governments are working on action plans to tackle complex and
long-term challenges in reducing CO2 emissions. CO2 emissions have been proven responsible for the devastating effects of
climate change, and the needs of new efficient energy conversion technology and improved battery chemistry are rapidly growing. Including both renewable and non-renewable
energy sources, the world population consumed nearly 18 trillion kWh last year alone and demand keeps growing; in fact more than half of the energy ever generated has been consumed in the last 15 years. Our electrical grids and power generators
are constantly expanding; the need for more efficient and environmentally friendly power has never been greater. Because it was easier to use, early grid developers worked with alternating current (ac) to feed power to the world, but in many areas, direct current (dc) can dramatically improve efficiency. Driven by the development of efficient and economic power conversion technology based on wide band gap semiconductors, such as GaN and SiC devices, many applications now see benefits in switching to dc energy exchange. As a consequence of that, precision dc energy metering is becoming relevant, especially where energy billing is involved. In this article, opportunities for dc metering in electric vehicle charging stations, renewable energy generation, server farms, microgrids, and peer-to-peer energy sharing will be discussed, and a dc energy meter design will be proposed.
DC EnErgy MEtErIng AppLICAtIonS DC Electric Vehicle Charging Stations The growth rate of plug-in electric vehicles (EVs) is estimated at +70 per cent CAGR as of 2018 and projected to grow +25 per cent CAGR year by year from 2017 to 2024. The charging station market will follow at 41.8 per cent CAGR from 2018 to 2023. However, to accelerate the
reduction of the CO2 footprint caused by private transportation, EVs need to become the first choice for the automotive market. In recent years great effort went into
improving the capacity and lifetime of batteries, but a widespread EV charging network is also a fundamental condition to allow long trips without concerns about range or charging time. Many energy providers and private companies are deploying fast chargers up to 150 kW, and there is strong interest in ultrafast chargers with power up to 500 kW per charging pile. Considering ultrafast charging stations with localised charging peak power up to megawatts and associated fast-charge energy premium rates, EV charging will become a massive energy exchange market, with the consequent need of accurate energy billing. Currently, standard EV chargers are metered
on the ac side with the drawback of no measurement of the energy lost in the ac-to-
8 August 2021 Instrumentation Monthly
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