Novel Concepts of High Voltage DC-DC Power Conversions for Energy Savings in Modern Public Transport

Abstract

Electrifications of the public transport have significantly reduced emissions. However, the power conversion systems are still suffered from low energy efficiency as they typically consists of multiple power processing stages. A high-efficient compact power conversion system for on-board applications for Trolley Buses, Trams, Metros and Light Rails is invented. With the innovative concepts from device selection, circuit design to system optimization, the proposed conversion system exhibits an overall 20% efficiency improvement and significant reduction in the physical volume and weight as compared to that of the conventional solutions. The proposed power conversion technique is highly expected to decouple transport demands and greenhouse gas emission levels and make our society moving toward green public transport. Two 2 kW, 1.5 kV to 48 V dc-dc converter prototypes have been built and evaluated. The experimental results are in well agreement with theoretical predictions.