Residential electrical energy installation

• US 10,135,361 B2
• Filed: 06/23/2015
• Issued: 11/20/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 05/08/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Koolbridge Solar, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Koolbridge Solar, Inc.
• Inventors: Dent, Paul Wilkinson
• Primary Examiner(s): Kaplan, Hal
• Application Number:
  US14/747,333
• Publication Number:
  US 20150288225A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,246 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H02H 3/16 responsive to fault current to earth, frame or mass with balanced or differential arrangement H02H3/26 ; monitoring earth connection H02H5/105
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 2300/00 Systems for supplying or distributing electric power characterised by decentralized, dispersed, or local generation
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 2300/22 The renewable source being solar energy
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 3/00 Circuit arrangements for ac mains or ac distribution networks
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 3/007 Arrangements for selectively connecting the load or loads to one or several among a plurality of power lines or power sources for providing uninterruptable power supply H02J9/00
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 3/38 Arrangements for parallely feeding a single network by two or more generators, converters or transformers
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 3/388 Islanding, i.e. disconnection of local power supply from the network
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 7/0068 Battery or charger load switching, e.g. concurrent charging and load supply H02J7/0013 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 7/35 with light sensitive cells
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 9/061 for DC powered loads
• CPC Class Codes: H02M 1/32 Means for protecting converters other than automatic disconnection
• CPC Class Codes: H02M 1/36 Means for starting or stopping converters
• CPC Class Codes: H02M 7/537 using semiconductor devices only, e.g. single switched pulse inverters
• CPC Class Codes: H02M 7/53871 with automatic control of output voltage or current
• CPC Class Codes: Y02A 30/00 Adapting or protecting infrastructure or their operation
• CPC Class Codes: Y02B 10/10 Photovoltaic [PV]
• CPC Class Codes: Y02E 10/56 Power conversion systems, e.g. maximum power point trackers

Abstract

An improved residential electrical energy system is described based on the use of a smart load center or power distribution panel configured to select the use of utility power or power derived from storage batteries independently for each of a number of load circuits based on availability of utility power and battery charge state information.

Claims

1. A residential energy installation comprising:

storage batteries operative to store energy;

a battery state monitoring circuit operative to monitor the charging and state of charge of said storage batteries and operative to generate a corresponding charging status information output;

a DC to AC conversion circuit operative to convert DC power input from said storage batteries to residential power at an AC power output, and

a Smart Load Center operative to distribute power through appropriate circuit breakers to a plurality of branch circuits, said Smart Load Center comprising a power distribution panel or sub-panel having a first AC power input from said AC power output from said DC to AC conversion circuit and a second AC power input from an electric utility grid, a power source being selectable for at least one of said branch circuits to be either said first AC power input or said second AC power input in dependence on said information output from said battery state monitoring circuit.

2. The residential energy installation of claim 1 further comprising:

a photovoltaic array comprising a plurality of photovoltaic strings operative to produce DC power to charge said storage batteries, and

a charge controller circuit operative to control, in dependence on said charging status information output, the plurality of said strings of said photovoltaic array used to charge said storage batteries.

3. The residential energy installation of claim 2 further comprising:

a grid-tied DC to AC converter circuit operative to convert DC power from photovoltaic strings not selected to charge said storage batteries, to AC power for back-feeding into the utility grid.

4. The residential energy installation of claim 1 in which said Smart Load Center has a quadruple internal bussbar operative to carry on a first two busses split-phase 120/240 volt power produced by said DC to AC conversion circuit and operative to carry split phase 120/240 volt power from a utility grid on a second two busses of said quadruple bussbar.

5. The residential energy installation of claim 1 in which said storage batteries comprise two independent and substantially identical storage battery banks and said DC to AC conversion circuit comprises two substantially identical DC to AC converters each using DC power from an associated one of said substantially identical storage battery banks, each inverter producing one of the two 120/240 volt split phase hot legs of said residential energy installation.

6. The residential energy installation of claim 1 further comprising a phase splitting transformer operative to produce both hotlegs of a 120/240 volt split phase residential energy system from a single phase output from said DC to AC conversion circuit.

7. The residential energy installation of claim 1 in which said Smart Load Center is operative to select a greater number of branch circuits to be powered from said AC power output of said DC to AC conversion circuit when said battery charge state information indicates a high state of charge and is operative to select a smaller number of branch circuits to be powered from said AC power output of said DC to AC conversion circuit when said information output from said battery state monitoring circuit indicates a low state of charge, the branch circuits not selected to be powered from said AC power output of said DC to AC conversion circuit being powered from said second power input.

8. The residential energy installation of claim 1 in which said Smart Load Center is configured to select a greater number of said branch circuits to be powered from said AC power output of said DC to AC conversion circuit when said second power input is temporarily unavailable, and while said second power input remains unavailable, to reduce the number of said branch circuits powered by said AC power output of said DC to AC conversion circuit if said information output from said battery state monitoring circuit indicates a low state of charge.

9. The residential energy installation of claim 1, further comprising:

a bidirectional DC to DC conversion circuit operative to convert DC power from said storage batteries at a first voltage to DC power to at least one second voltage used by said DC to AC conversion circuit.

10. The residential energy installation of claim 9 in which said storage batteries comprise two substantially identical storage battery banks, and said bidirectional DC to DC conversion circuit comprises two substantially identical DC to DC converters, each associated with one of said substantially identical storage battery banks and operative to convert DC power from the associated battery bank at a first voltage to at least one second voltage used by said DC to AC conversion circuit.

11. A method of operating a residential electrical energy installation comprising storage batteries operative to store energy;

a battery state monitoring circuit;

a DC to AC conversion circuit; and

a Smart Load Center operative to selectively distribute power through appropriate circuit breakers to a plurality of branch circuits, the power selected from either said DC to AC conversion circuit or an electric utility grid;

the method comprising the steps of;

monitoring, by said battery state monitoring circuit, the charge or charging state of said batteries and producing information corresponding to said charge or charging state;

converting, by said DC to AC conversion circuit, DC power from said storage batteries to residential AC power, and

distributing, by said Smart Load Center, either said residential AC power from said DC to AC conversion circuit or power from the electric utility grid, through one or more appropriate circuit breakers to one or more of the plurality of branch circuits in dependence on said charge or charging state information.

12. The method of claim 11 in which said storage battery is charged from AC power using a bidirectional DC to AC converter in reverse in dependence on said charge or charging state information.

13. The method of claim 11 wherein said residential electrical energy installation further comprises a photovoltaic array, and in which said storage battery is charged using DC power from said photovoltaic array in dependence on said charge or charging state information.

14. The method of claim 11 wherein said residential electrical energy installation further comprises a bidirectional DC to DC converter, and in which converting DC power from said storage batteries to residential AC power comprises

converting, by said bidirectional DC to DC converter, DC power at a first voltage output from said storage batteries to DC power of at least one second voltage, and

using the DC power at said at least one second voltage to produce said residential AC power.

15. The method of claim 11 in which distributing said residential AC power through appropriate circuit breakers to the plurality of branch circuits in dependence on said charge state information comprises distributing said residential AC power produced by said DC to AC conversion circuit to a reduced number of branch circuits when said charge state information indicates that the battery charge or charging state is low while distributing electric utility grid power to the remainder of said branch circuits.

16. The method of claim 11 in which distributing said residential AC power through appropriate circuit breakers to the plurality of branch circuits in dependence on said charge or charging state information comprises distributing AC power produced by said DC to AC conversion circuit to an increased number of branch circuits if electric utility grid power is not available and when electric utility grid power is available distributing AC power produced by said DC to AC conversion circuit to a reduced number of branch circuits when said charge or charging state information indicates that the battery charge or charging state is low.