Supercapacitor-Based Energy Storage in Elevators to Improve Energy Efficiency of Buildings

Improving energy efficiency is the most important goal for buildings today. One of the ways to increase energy efficiency is to use the regenerative potential of elevators. Due to the special requirements of elevator drives, energy storage systems based on supercapacitors are the most suitable for storing regenerative energy. This paper proposes an energy storage system consisting of a supercapacitor bank and a bidirectional six-phase interleaved DC/DC converter. The energy savings achieved by the proposed system were investigated through simulation tests. The proposed system was modeled considering all physical constraints. A simulation model of the existing faculty elevator system was created in PLECS and verified with field measurements. Reliable results were ensured by using the verified simulation model and considering all physical constraints. The operation of the proposed energy storage system was tested under various conditions. In addition, the simulation model of the elevator system with the proposed energy storage system was tested using the elevator traffic data obtained from the measurements. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed energy storage system and that significant energy savings can be achieved.