Lithium-ion based battery energy storage system has become one of the most popular forms of energy storage system for its high charge and discharge efficiency and high energy density. This dissertation proposes a high-efficiency grid-tie lithium-ion battery based energy storage system, which consists of a LiFePO4 battery based energy storage and associated battery management system (BMS), a high-efficiency bidirectional ac-dc converter and the central control unit which controls the operation mode and grid interface of the energy storage system. The BMS estimates the state of charge (SOC) and state of health (SOH) of each battery cell in the pack and applies active charge equalization to balance the charge of all the cells in the pack. The bidirectional ac-dc converter works as the interface between the battery pack and the ac grid, which needs to meet the requirements of bidirectional power flow capability and to ensure high power factor and low THD as well as to regulate the dc side power regulation. A highly efficient dual-buck converter based bidirectional ac-dc converter is proposed. The implemented converter efficiency peaks at 97.8% at 50-kHz switching frequency for both rectifier and inverter modes. To better utilize the dc bus voltage and eliminate the two dc bus bulk capacitors in the conventional dual-buck converter, a novel bidirectional ac-dc converter is proposed by replacing the capacitor leg of the dual-buck converter based single-phase bidirectional ac-dc converter with a half-bridge switch leg. Based on the single-phase bidirectional ac-dc converter topology, three novel three-phase bidirectional ac-dc converter topologies are proposed. In order to control the bidirectional power flow and at the same time stabilize the system in mode transition, an admittance compensator along with a quasi-proportional-resonant (QPR) controller is adopted to allow smooth startup and elimination of the steady-state error over the entire load range. The proposed QPR controller is designed and implemented with a digital controller. The entire system has been simulated in both PSIM and Simulink and verified with hardware experiments. Small transient currents are observed with the power transferred from rectifier mode to inverter mode at peak current point and also from inverter mode to rectifier mode at peak current point. The designed BMS monitors and reports all battery cells parameters in the pack and estimates the SOC of each battery cell by using the Coulomb counting plus an accurate open-circuit voltage model. The SOC information is then used to control the isolated bidirectional dc-dc converter based active cell balancing circuits to mitigate the mismatch among the series connected cells. Using the proposed SOC balancing technique, the entire battery storage system has demonstrated more capacity than the system without SOC balancing. / Ph. D.

This thesis proposes a new bidirectional three-phase AC-DC power converter using matrix converter and Z-source inverter topologies. Advantages of the AC-DC matrix converter are the inherently controllable power factor, the tight DC voltage regulation, the wide bandwidth with quick response to load variation, the single-stage buck-voltage AC-to-DC power conversion; advantages of the z-source inverter are the increased reliability by allowing the shoot-through between upper and lower power switches of one inverter leg, insensitivity to DC bus voltage due to the extra freedom of controlling DC-link voltage. The proposed Matrix-Z-source converter (MZC) marries up both advantages of AC-DC matrix converter and Z-source inverter. It can achieve voltage-boost DC-AC inversion capable of variable voltage variable frequency (VVVF) AC output; it can achieve voltage-buck AC-DC rectification capable of inherent control over AC current phase angle and DC output regulation with a (VVVF) AC source supply. Both foresaid performance in DC-AC inversion and AC-DC rectification can be implemented in a simple open-loop control manner. Three constraints of VSI, in the bidirectional AC-DC power conversion, are the peak AC voltages are always less than DC-link voltage, closed-loop control has to be employed when DC regulation and/or AC current phase angle control are required, and AC voltage is sensitive to the variation of the DC-link voltage in DC-AC inversion. The voltage-boost inversion and/or voltage-buck rectification of MZC overcomes the first constraint; thus MZC enables the AC machine voltage increased higher than DC-link voltage hence advantages of running AC machine at relatively high voltages are enabled. The direct DC voltage regulation and inherent AC-current-phase-angle control of MZC overcomes the second constraint in an open-loop manner; hence a simplified system design is obtained with sufficient room for the further improvement by closed-loop control schemes. The extra freedom in controlling DC-link voltage of MZC overcomes the third constraint hence a DC source voltage adaptable inverter is obtained. This thesis focuses on the study of the feasibility of the proposed MZC through theoretical analysis and experimental verification. At first, the proposed MZC is conceptually constructed by examining the quadrant operation of AC-DC matrix converter and Z-source inverter. After the examination of the operating principles of both AC-DC matrix converter and Z-source inverter, the configuration of MZC is then proposed. The MZC has two operating modes: DC-AC inversion and AC-DC rectification. Circuit analysis for both operating modes shows that the new topology does not impose critical conflict in circuit design or extra restriction in parameterization. On the contrary, one version of the proposed MZC can make full advantage of Z-source network components in both operating modes, i.e. a pair of Z-source inductor and capacitor can be used as low-pass filter in AC-DC rectification. The modulation strategy, average modeling of system, and features of critical variables for circuit design of the proposed MZC were examined for each operating mode. Simulations of the proposed MZC and its experimental verification have been presented. Analytical models of conduction and switching losses of the power-switch network in different operating mode have shown that the losses in the MZC compare favorably with conventional VSI for a range of power factor and modulation indices.