Assessment of the feasibility of interconnected smart DC homes in a DC microgrid to reduce utility costs of low income households

DC Microgrids (DC MG) present themselves as an obvious choice enabling integration of multiple renewable energy sources and distributed energy storage. This concept of DC electrification of homes in small communities is being explored in many parts of the world. Furthermore, typical household loads are increasingly becoming natively DC. In this paper, a community DC MG in an urban environment is analyzed. In combination with a community revitalization effort, up to 9 renovated dwellings (a mixture of apartments in a commercial property and houses) will be equipped with a smart DC power panel for loads such as LED lights, fans and air conditioning while a portion of loads will remain AC with an AC/DC converter interface between the loads. The smart DC power panel interfaces to the community DC MG. The effectiveness of driving down utility costs in a low-income household using this concept is compared to a home with conventional AC loads and AC loads with smart technologies. The efficacy of the DC MG to optimal installation and usage of solar energy and battery energy storage is determined and a notional smart energy management approach is presented.

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