Solid State Transformer (SST) as an energy router: Economic dispatch based energy routing strategy

The Solid State Transformer (SST) is a revolutionary technology being developed by the authors. It has a tremendous number of features, which include power management, fault management and energy management. Its autonomous and distributed power management capability enables large-scale integration of distributed energy resources (DER) into the power grid. Specifically, it supports AC or DC connected Energy Cells: a combination of DERs, energy storage devices and loads. The SST can achieve real-time power flow regulation via the Energy Cell, therefore forming the foundation of its capability to become a real-time Energy Router. This paper introduces an economic based energy routing strategy that utilizes energy storage to reduce consumption of grid power. Predictive photovoltaic and load forecasting are used to optimize charging and discharging of energy storage. This rule-based algorithm is implemented and demonstrated in a SST enabled 380 V DC Energy Cell.