General Approach to Synthesize Multi-Port Power Converters for Hybrid Energy Systems

Increasing integration of various energy sources to the power grid, demand for higher power density, and higher cyber security resulted in a growing attention to multi-port power converters. Although several multi-port converter (MPC) topologies exist in the literature, there is an absence of a systematic method to design, develop, and control MPCs. This paper proposes a systematic method that can be used to design MPCs for different applications. This method includes the approach to develop topologies for MPCs and a general approach to design proper control systems for them. The proposed method is applied to four sample cases from the existing MPCs in the literature to demonstrate its effectiveness. Moreover, the control method is applied to one of the sample cases and the simulation and experimental results are presented.