IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - March 2022 - 23

EUTN and Residential Energy Routers
The residential energy router (ER) is an enabling technology
for building the EUTN infrastructure, which was first
proposed by FREEDM in 2010 [14]. The residential ER not
only allows efficient integration and interaction of distributed
generators, energy storages and loads, but also
addresses the power balancing and power quality issues at
the building level. By implementing this ER, a building
becomes an independent entity that could act as a controllable
asset for the utility grid. Featuring a bidirectional power
flow control capability, the ER specifies the exact amount of
power supplied by the utility or power that can be provided
to the utility during lower power demand in the residential
nanogrid. A set of residential prosumers
equipped with ERs can establish an energy
community sharing their resources. Due to
the ER, each of the buildings could be operated
in three distinctive modes: grid-connected,
community, or islanded mode. In
the grid-connected mode, the ER acquires
various types of data and incorporates the
control algorithms required to coordinate
the on-site generation and storage, yielding
energy savings for the homeowners.
Weather data is received through the internet
connection and is used for monitoring
and forecasting PV generation and the load
profiles. Open communications with the
utility company allow for settings, preferences,
load and energy resource data to be
received or sent by the utility, which may
be used for smart decision making by the
ER. When the utility grid is not accessible,
the local grid is isolated, and the ERs could
operate either in the community or islanded
mode. In that case, the main priorities are
power quality and supply reliability, which
are realized through active functions available
from the ER, such as:
■ power control (active and reactive power);
■ ac voltage control (compensation of voltage
sags and peaks, harmonic control);
■ ac current control (harmonic cancellation,
short-circuit current limitation);
■ protection functions (frequency control,
voltage and current monitoring, short
circuit protection).
As Figure 3 shows, the ER consists of
three main functional parts, i.e., the power
electronics, communication interface, and
management/control system. The communication
interface is responsible for the
upstream communications with the DSO,
Aggregator, ESCO, Energy Community Manager,
or any other transactive entity responsible
for negotiating with the end-user. This
USM
Communication
Interface
interface also communicates with the unbundle smart meter
(USM) [16], capable of accommodating advanced metering
and evaluation functions, and the HEMS, to make use of
the end-user flexibility or to carry out the demand response
schemes. The ER management/control system accommodates
Transactive and/or P2P control schemes and will be
responsible for managing all the energy routing through the
power electronics part of the ER.
The power electronics control algorithms will ensure
proper energy routing by taking into account all the constraints
and limitations, properly performing the charge/
discharge cycles of the battery energy storage (ES) and
maximum power point tracking (MPPT) of DERs such as
Business Objectives
Polit./Regulat.. Framework
Business
Layer
Function
Layer
Information
Layer
Communication
Layer
Component
Layer
Generation
Transmission
Distribution
DER
Domains
Customer
Premise
FIG 2 Positioning of EUTN physical devices on the SGAM architecture.
Outline of Usecase
Subfunctions
Data Model
Protocol
Data Model
Protocol
Operation
Enterprise
Market
Station
Process
Field
Zones
HEMS
Energy Router
Management
Control System
Power Electronics
Home
Devices
DER
Power Grid
FIG 3 Conceptual architecture of the Energy Router (ER).
March 2022 z IEEE POWER ELECTRONICS MAGAZINE 23
ES EV
Power link
Interoperability Dimension
Communication Link
IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - March 2022

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