News challenges and protocols for DC bus for Smart Buildings

Overview & Synopsis

This paper present news trends for electric DC microgrids for smart Homes and smart cities. With the emer- gence of the renewable energies, the DC bus could optimize electricity power efficiency for smart home (green home). Since the initial choice for alternative current transportation in 1880, the electrical architecture distributions haven’t been change with one direction distribution to the consumers through high voltage lines. But AC power distribution therefore is so wasteful due to number of converters AC/AC and AC/DC with consequent energy losses (15% energy per converter). Nowadays most of renewable energy sources as solar panel are DC and all modern appliances are also DC powered (LED lighting, IT, electric car ..). We propose a smart DC grid distribution architecture for smart homes based on 2 voltages levels 48 VDC (Power over Ethernet) and 380 to 400 HVDC bus to improve electrical efficiency. Under the scope of ANR-C3µ project we present a microgrid DC bus with distributed control command for optimal energy resources management based on self-consumption and peak shaving for the grid. For data exchanges we will use Power Line Communication (PLC) now widely used in wide range of AC application (IP over AC) for the DC line and to pilot the DC microgrid. With the expérimental results feedback we could analyze the communications performances and the design for a microgrid control/command system in smart building applications.