DC Microgrids—Part II: A Review of Power Architectures, Applications, and Standardization Issues

DC microgrids (MGs) have been gaining a continually increasing interest over the past couple of years both in academia and industry. The advantages of DC distribution when compared to its AC counterpart are well known. The most important ones include higher reliability and efficiency, simpler control and natural interface with renewable energy sources (RESs), electronic loads and energy storage systems (ESSs). With rapid emergence of these components in modern power systems, the importance of DC in today’s society is gradually being brought to a whole new level. A broad class of traditional DC distribution applications such as traction, telecom, vehicular and distributed power systems can be classified under DC MG framework and ongoing development and expansion of the field is largely influenced by concepts used over there. This paper aims firstly to shed light on the practical design aspects of DC MG technology concerning typical power hardware topologies and their suitability for different emerging smart grid applications. Then, an overview of the state of the art in DC MG protection and grounding is provided. Owing to the fact that there is no zero current crossing, an arc that appears upon breaking DC current cannot be extinguished naturally, making the protection of DC MGs a challenging problem. In relation with this, a comprehensive overview of protection schemes which discusses both design of practical protective devices and their integration into overall protection systems is provided. Closely coupled with protection, conflicting grounding objectives, e.g. minimization of stray current and common mode voltage are explained and several practical solutions are presented. Also, standardization efforts for DC systems are addressed. Finally, concluding remarks and important future research directions are pointed out.