A compact power converter for hybrid energy systems

In hybrid energy systems, batteries and supercapacitors are usually taken as storage mechanisms for smoothing output power, start-up transition, and various load conditions. As a result, developing hybrid power conversion systems has become an attractive research topic. In this study, a compact non-isolated bidirectional DC-DC converter is proposed to interface two DC power sources, which mainly benefit with reduced power switches. In detail, only two switches are needed while for conventional systems four switches are required. Although the number of switches is reduced by half, the proposed converter is still proficient for energy diversification from two energy sources individually or simultaneously. Another benefit of the proposed converter is its extensibility. Several converters are given by easily extending the proposed converter to different applications. They also feature with reduced power switches compare to conventional systems. Detailed analysis on the topology and control algorithm of the proposed converter are given. Real-time simulation results are provided to verify the validity of the proposed system.