PEBB Standardization for High-Level Control: A Proposal

Power Electronic Building Block-based power converters are the ideal solution for interfacing different portions of the network in power distribution systems. Flexibility is the feature that makes them suitable as power routing devices, load drives, active filters, and interfaces for energy storage devices. Standardization is the key to actual realization. The flexibility and standardization of the hardware components must be paired with the standardization of the control architecture to achieve full plug-and-play capabilities. The recent work of IEEE standardization bodies is fully supporting this direction. This paper shows how these concepts can find immediate application, with significant benefit of robustness of power systems. In this paper, the authors focus on the higher layer of the architecture that is not covered by the standards. This paper provides a proposal for the list of functionalities that could exploit the characteristics of the standardized hardware. Most of the examples presented herein are derived from experience in the area of ship power systems and could be applied immediately to terrestrial systems.