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The future substation depends on finding a way to mitigate the effects of the drawbacks of the conventional legacy by employing the efficiency of the solid state switches in light of changing the loading features by time such as Electrical Vehicles (EV) and Photo-voltaic (PV) cells. In distribution transformers the ratio between the primary voltage and the secondary voltage cannot be changed, and the use of the on-load taps changers are limited. Poor voltage regulation and reactive power transmission is a direct reason for losses and shortening the life of several devices. This research discusses the considerations of applying Power Electronics (PE) approaches and designs that provide additional functions in regulating the voltage and controlling the reactive power that is injected in the distribution network, using embedded fractional rated converters attached partially with the windings of the LV transformer. These approaches studies the possible considerations that have the potentials to enhance the unit with more flexibility in controlling the voltage and reactive power at the last mile of the network, in order to decrease the losses and meet the future expectations for low voltage networks modifications, and that by using a Power Electronic (PE) approach has less losses and more functionality depending on the reliability of transformer and intelligence of PE solutions. The approach of a hybrid distribution transformer is introduced and its functionality in regulating the voltage and injecting reactive power is illustrated. A back-to-back converter is controlled according to the immediate need for voltage control and reactive power in Low Voltage (LV) networks, and for the purpose of controlling three unbalanced phases using two control strategies; resonant controller and vector control. The overall controller adds or decreases voltage (10%-20%) to/from the total output voltage in order to control the whole output voltage of the transformer. In addition, some loads need high amount of reactive power at last mile of the network, therefore the consideration of using switched capacitors technique is introduced to serve at the end user side whereby its ability to provide automatic variable reactive power compensation in a closed loop system is illustrated. The considerations results indicate significant potentials for deploying PE in the last mile of the network by using innovative designs and suitable control functions with less losses and costs.

Microinverter has become a new trend for photovoltaic (PV) grid-tie systems due to its advantages which include greater energy harvest, simplified system installation, enhanced safety, and flexible expansion. Since an individual microinverter system is typically attached to the back of a PV module, it is desirable that it has a long lifespan that can match PV modules, which routinely warrant 25 years of operation. In order to increase the life expectancy and improve the long-term reliability, electrolytic capacitors must be avoided in microinverters because they have been identified as an unreliable component. One solution to avoid electrolytic capacitors in microinverters is using a two-stage architecture, where the high voltage direct current (DC) bus can work as a double line ripple buffer. For two-stage electrolyte-free microinverters, a high boost ratio dc-dc converter is required to increase the low PV module voltage to a high DC bus voltage required to run the inverter at the second stage. New high boost ratio dc-dc converter topologies using the hybrid transformer concept are presented in this dissertation. The proposed converters have improved magnetic and device utilization. Combine these features with the converter's reduced switching losses which results in a low cost, simple structure system with high efficiency. Using the California Energy Commission (CEC) efficiency standards a 250 W prototype was tested achieving an overall system efficiency of 97.3%. The power inversion stage of electrolyte-free microinverters requires a high efficiency grid-tie inverter. A transformerless inverter topology with low electro-magnetic interference (EMI) and leakage current is presented. It has the ability to use modern superjunction MOSFETs in conjunction with zero-reverse-recovery silicon carbide (SiC) diodes to achieve ultrahigh efficiency. The performance of the topology was experimentally verified with a tested CEC efficiency of 98.6%. Due to the relatively low energy density of film capacitors compared to electrolytic counterparts, less capacitance is used on the DC bus in order to lower the cost and reduce the volume of electrolyte-free microinverters. The reduced capacitance leads to high double line ripple voltage oscillation on DC bus. If the double line oscillation propagates back into the PV module, the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) performance would be compromised. A control method which prevents the double line oscillation from going to the PV modules, thus improving the MPPT performance was proposed. Finally, a control technique using a single microcontroller with low sampling frequency was presented to effectively eliminate electrolyte capacitors in two-stage microinverters without any added penalties. The effectiveness of this control technique was validated both by simulation and experimental results.