Available Technologies

The ability to store and shift electrical power over time is becoming more important as economies increasingly adopt renewable power sources. Meshed AC power grids have limited controllability and cannot effectively handle congestion of key transmission lines during sporadic peaks and valleys of input power, such as that produced by solar and wind sources. Conventional unified power flow controllers (UPFCs) mitigate the congestion problem by balancing the load across transmission lines, but require expensive, large transformers with high losses. They are also inefficient at handling sporadic power inputs.

Michigan State University’s invention is a transformer-less UPFC. This allows the UPFC to be produced far more cheaply and take up less real estate than conventional UPFCs. In addition, it is much more efficient and better suited to handle highly dynamic current power inputs.

* Cheaper than conventional UPFCs

* Less space required at load-balancing points in the grid

* Efficient under stable and sporadic power inputs—great for multiple or unpredictable power inputs such as solar and wind energy sources

* Power distribution for load balancing, especially where solar and wind supply power