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Samir Kouro

Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Departamento de Electrónica, Faculty Member

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Dr. Samir Kouro is Professor and Director of Innovation and Technology Transfer at Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria in Chile. His research interests include power electronics, renewable energy conversion systems (photovoltaic and wind), e-mobility, and energy transition technologies. He is Principal Investigator of the Solar Energy Research Center (SERC-Chile), and Deputy Director of the Advanced Center of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (AC3E).

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Papers by Samir Kouro

Proceedings - 2012 3rd IEEE International Symposium on Power Electronics for Distributed Generation Systems, PEDG 2012

Bidirectional partial power converter interface for energy storage systems to provide peak shaving in grid-tied PV plants

The ever growing participation of modern renewable resources in electric markets has shaken the p... more The ever growing participation of modern renewable resources in electric markets has shaken the paradigm of generation-demand constant match. Most modern renewables add intermittent behaviour and high variability to electric markets, forcing other renewables and themselves to perform power curtailment and/or having extra generating units connected to the network to compensate power, voltage and frequency variations. In order to handle this scenario, Energy Storage Systems (ESSs) have risen as enabling technologies capable to provide backup energy to compensate power, voltage and frequency fluctuations and, at the same time, offer additional benefits as ancillary services, peak shaving, load shifting, base load generation, etc. This paper presents a novel bidirectional Partial Power Converter (PPC), as an interface between a Battery ESS (BESS) and a gridtied Photovoltaic (PV) plant. To obtain a better understanding of the converter, its mathematical model is presented and its operation modes are explained. The main purpose of this configuration is to provide peak shaving capability to a grid-tied PV plant, while providing a high efficiency BESS. Simulation results show the operation of the full system (grid-tied PV plant and BESS), performing peak shaving under a step-down and up in solar irradiation.

Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure: From Grid to Battery

IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine, Jun 1, 2021

Electrification has been a key component of technological progress and economic development since... more Electrification has been a key component of technological progress and economic development since the industrial revolution. It has improved living conditions, spurred innovation, and increased efficiency across all sectors of our economy and all aspects of our lives. During the coming decades, electrification is expected to reach further and deeper into the transportation, building, and industry sectors, mainly motivated by the energy transition to a zero-carbonemission-based economy to mitigate climate change.

Bipolar-type DC microgrids for high-quality power distribution

Institution of Engineering and Technology eBooks, Oct 17, 2018

During the last decades, AC systems dominated the power transmission and distribution application... more During the last decades, AC systems dominated the power transmission and distribution applications almost exclusively. However, a recent convergence of needs originated in different sectors (renewable energy conversion, information technology and transportation) have accelerated the development of DC systems. Nowadays, DC systems are present at both transmission and distribution levels, offering high-performance solutions with enhanced efficiency and reliability, besides reducing the number of power conversion stages involved and uninterrupted power delivery. For LVDC active networks, two kinds of architectures are possible: unipolar and bipolar. Despite being a more sophisticated and technically complex solution, bipolar structure provide several advantages over conventional unipolar ones. Higher availability, efficiency and flexibility are just a few advantages featured by bipolar systems. This chapter presented a brief overview covering the different aspects of bipolar LVDC networks. Distribution converter topologies, balancing stages and also their control schemes are discussed in order to highlight the efforts being made in this growing architecture.

Single-phase Controlled Rectifiers

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on single-phase controlled rectifiers that are used in a w... more Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on single-phase controlled rectifiers that are used in a wide range of applications. Line-commutated rectifiers with diodes, covered in a previous chapter of this handbook, do not allow the control of power being converted from ac to dc. The main disadvantages of the classical line-commutated rectifiers are that they produce a lagging displacement factor with respect to the voltage of the utility, and they generate an important amount of input current harmonics. The standard can be satisfied only by adding huge passive filters, which increases the size, weight, and cost of the rectifier. This standard has been the motivation for the development of active methods to improve the quality of the input current and, consequently, the power factor. An important issue in power electronics is the power losses in power semiconductors. The conduction losses are produced by the current through the semiconductor juncture, so these losses are unavoidable. The single-phase boost rectifier has become the most popular topology for power factor correction (PFC) in general purpose power supplies.

Improved active frequency drift anti-islanding method with lower total harmonic distortion

As more distributed generators join the utility grid, the concern of unintentional islanding incr... more As more distributed generators join the utility grid, the concern of unintentional islanding increases. This concern is due to the safety hazards this phenomena imposes on the personnel and equipment. Passive anti-islanding methods monitor grid parameters to detect islanding, whereas active methods inject perturbation into current waveform to drive theses parameters out of limit. The performance of active methods, such

Dual-Purpose Converters for DC or AC Grid as Energy Transition Solution: Perspectives and Challenges

IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine, 2023

Photovoltaic Module and Submodule Level Power Electronics and Control

IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, May 1, 2019

Enhanced Switching Frequency Control in FCS-MPC for Power Converters

IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, Mar 1, 2021

Multilevel converters for renewable energy systems

Elsevier eBooks, 2021

Maximizing energy harvest of the impedance source PV microconverter under partial shading conditions

This paper presents a novel efficiency enhancement method for the multi-mode quasi-Z-source serie... more This paper presents a novel efficiency enhancement method for the multi-mode quasi-Z-source series resonant DC-DC converter (qZSSRC) operating in a boost mode. To decrease the conduction losses associated with the shoot-through control the authors propose to use the reconfigurable rectifier at the output stage of the qZSSRC that enables DC gain control in the most critical operating points by the reconfiguration of the rectifier instead of the shoot-through control. The paper explains the operation and the control principle of the qZSSRC with the reconfigurable rectifier and provides an application example and experimental results of the proposed approach in a 250 W impedance source photovoltaic microconverter operating in partial shading conditions.

The use of solar energy in the copper mining processes: A comprehensive review

Cleaner engineering and technology, Oct 1, 2021

Abstract The copper mineral processing industry faces complex scenarios with increased demand, hi... more Abstract The copper mineral processing industry faces complex scenarios with increased demand, highly variable energy prices, falling ore grades that increase energy consumption, and increasing concern about the industry's carbon footprint. To reduce the risk imposed by these scenarios, the industry is looking at the use of renewable energy sources. Considering that the most important copper mines in Chile are situated in regions with high radiation levels, solar energy has the potential to be an attractive and sustainable source of energy. This paper provides an overview of the current solar technologies and how they have been applied to address some of the challenges faced by the copper mining industry today. It describes the use of solar thermal and solar photovoltaic technologies to produce power and heat for the copper mining processes. Indeed, solar photovoltaic technologies can be used to produce electricity for the comminution machines, electro-refineries and water pumping while solar thermal technologies are useful for electricity generation, heat production, thermal leaching and drying of copper concentrate. The review also analyzes, from a broader perspective, the potential of these technologies in the operation and design of new solar copper mineral processes. It is concluded that there several feasible options to integrate solar energy into the copper mining processes.

Charging Architectures Integrated with Distributed Energy Resources for Sustainable Mobility

Energy Procedia, May 1, 2017

This paper introduces a study on the charging infrastructures, integrated with distributed energy... more This paper introduces a study on the charging infrastructures, integrated with distributed energy sources, showing their ability to support the electric and hybrid mobility in a smart grid scenario. This analysis starts from a description of the main AC and DC architecture and then goes through the advantages derived by the integration of renewable energy sources within the existing electric power network. A section of this paper is then dedicated to the main technologies of energy storage systems, which allow and support the integration of unpredictable energy sources into the grid. Finally, the power on-board and off-board vehicle charging devices are analyzed with specific focus on PWM control schemes, for the regulation of AC/DC and DC/DC power converters, and on grid operations (V2G) related to different aggregation schemes.

Emerging Converter Topologies and Control for Grid Connected Photovoltaic Systems

MDPI eBooks, Feb 26, 2021

Common DC-link Capacitor Lifetime Extension in Modular dc/dc Converters for Electric Vehicle Fast Chargers via Variable-Angle Interleaved Operation

IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 2022

The DC Transformer Power Electronic Building Block: Powering Next-Generation Converter Design

IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine, Mar 1, 2023

Operation of an hybrid PV-battery system with improved harmonic performance

IECON 2017 - 43rd Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, Oct 1, 2017

The search of efficient, robust and fault-tolerant electronic power converters is a challenge for... more The search of efficient, robust and fault-tolerant electronic power converters is a challenge for the industry and academia. Nowadays, the integration and exploitation of the renewable energy sources and energy storage systems is required. In these terms, the multilevel power converters and specifically the cascaded H-bridge (CHB) power converter is a very good candidate. However, if a CHB power converter operates under an unbalanced operation a low-frequency high-distortion content appears in the output voltage spectrum. In order to reduce this problem, an extra cell, equipped with a low voltage battery or supercapacitor, is added to the original CHB converter. The idea is to operate the extra cell with the convenient duty cycle value in order to eliminate the low-order harmonic distortion generated by the unbalanced operation. This makes the proposed method very interesting because it leads to a reduction of the grid connection filter.

Wavelet-based ESS sizing strategy to enable power peak-shaving in PV systems

2019 IEEE 28th International Symposium on Industrial Electronics (ISIE)

This work presents an Energy Storage Systems (ESS) sizing strategy, that allows grid connected PV... more This work presents an Energy Storage Systems (ESS) sizing strategy, that allows grid connected PV systems to provide peak-shaved maximum-power-Ramp-Rate (RR) compliant power while storing exceeding power. For this purpose power generation and power loss caused by complying several RR restrictions were estimated. The estimation is based on irradiance and temperature real data from a measuring station located in the Atacama desert in Chile. The presented sizing strategy is based on Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) and allows to obtain an energy and power ESS sizing matching different criterion. Moreover, the selection of the ad-hoc wavelet and decomposition level, required filter the estimated PV power, is also presented.

Microinverter based on series connected submodular photovoltaic power cells

2017 CHILEAN Conference on Electrical, Electronics Engineering, Information and Communication Technologies (CHILECON), 2017

In recent years, the use of non-conventional renewable energies, particularly photovoltaic solar ... more In recent years, the use of non-conventional renewable energies, particularly photovoltaic solar energy, has been growing steadily in the country and is currently a real alternative to collaborate in the production of energy required by the national industry. Motivated by the above is that the study and development of technology in Chile for this energy opportunity is fundamental at the present time. The present paper aims to improve the conversion of photovoltaic solar energy by improving the quality of energy and the efficiency of the conversion process by means of a sub-module microinverter where the junction box is eliminated, connecting to each sub-module a Flyback converter and then realizing the grid connection through cascaded H-bridges. The proposed solution shows it superiority compared with the classical microinverters, especially in case of long term partial shading such as dust or snow accumulation. In this job experimental results are shown to validate the proposed architecture, also an analysis of the power quality is presented to verify that the proposed system complies with the IEEE 1457 Std.

Emerging Converter Topologies and Control for Grid Connected Photovoltaic Systems

Proceedings - 2012 3rd IEEE International Symposium on Power Electronics for Distributed Generation Systems, PEDG 2012

Bidirectional partial power converter interface for energy storage systems to provide peak shaving in grid-tied PV plants

The ever growing participation of modern renewable resources in electric markets has shaken the p... more The ever growing participation of modern renewable resources in electric markets has shaken the paradigm of generation-demand constant match. Most modern renewables add intermittent behaviour and high variability to electric markets, forcing other renewables and themselves to perform power curtailment and/or having extra generating units connected to the network to compensate power, voltage and frequency variations. In order to handle this scenario, Energy Storage Systems (ESSs) have risen as enabling technologies capable to provide backup energy to compensate power, voltage and frequency fluctuations and, at the same time, offer additional benefits as ancillary services, peak shaving, load shifting, base load generation, etc. This paper presents a novel bidirectional Partial Power Converter (PPC), as an interface between a Battery ESS (BESS) and a gridtied Photovoltaic (PV) plant. To obtain a better understanding of the converter, its mathematical model is presented and its operation modes are explained. The main purpose of this configuration is to provide peak shaving capability to a grid-tied PV plant, while providing a high efficiency BESS. Simulation results show the operation of the full system (grid-tied PV plant and BESS), performing peak shaving under a step-down and up in solar irradiation.

Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure: From Grid to Battery

IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine, Jun 1, 2021

Electrification has been a key component of technological progress and economic development since... more Electrification has been a key component of technological progress and economic development since the industrial revolution. It has improved living conditions, spurred innovation, and increased efficiency across all sectors of our economy and all aspects of our lives. During the coming decades, electrification is expected to reach further and deeper into the transportation, building, and industry sectors, mainly motivated by the energy transition to a zero-carbonemission-based economy to mitigate climate change.

Bipolar-type DC microgrids for high-quality power distribution

Institution of Engineering and Technology eBooks, Oct 17, 2018

During the last decades, AC systems dominated the power transmission and distribution application... more During the last decades, AC systems dominated the power transmission and distribution applications almost exclusively. However, a recent convergence of needs originated in different sectors (renewable energy conversion, information technology and transportation) have accelerated the development of DC systems. Nowadays, DC systems are present at both transmission and distribution levels, offering high-performance solutions with enhanced efficiency and reliability, besides reducing the number of power conversion stages involved and uninterrupted power delivery. For LVDC active networks, two kinds of architectures are possible: unipolar and bipolar. Despite being a more sophisticated and technically complex solution, bipolar structure provide several advantages over conventional unipolar ones. Higher availability, efficiency and flexibility are just a few advantages featured by bipolar systems. This chapter presented a brief overview covering the different aspects of bipolar LVDC networks. Distribution converter topologies, balancing stages and also their control schemes are discussed in order to highlight the efforts being made in this growing architecture.

Single-phase Controlled Rectifiers

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on single-phase controlled rectifiers that are used in a w... more Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on single-phase controlled rectifiers that are used in a wide range of applications. Line-commutated rectifiers with diodes, covered in a previous chapter of this handbook, do not allow the control of power being converted from ac to dc. The main disadvantages of the classical line-commutated rectifiers are that they produce a lagging displacement factor with respect to the voltage of the utility, and they generate an important amount of input current harmonics. The standard can be satisfied only by adding huge passive filters, which increases the size, weight, and cost of the rectifier. This standard has been the motivation for the development of active methods to improve the quality of the input current and, consequently, the power factor. An important issue in power electronics is the power losses in power semiconductors. The conduction losses are produced by the current through the semiconductor juncture, so these losses are unavoidable. The single-phase boost rectifier has become the most popular topology for power factor correction (PFC) in general purpose power supplies.

Improved active frequency drift anti-islanding method with lower total harmonic distortion

As more distributed generators join the utility grid, the concern of unintentional islanding incr... more As more distributed generators join the utility grid, the concern of unintentional islanding increases. This concern is due to the safety hazards this phenomena imposes on the personnel and equipment. Passive anti-islanding methods monitor grid parameters to detect islanding, whereas active methods inject perturbation into current waveform to drive theses parameters out of limit. The performance of active methods, such

Dual-Purpose Converters for DC or AC Grid as Energy Transition Solution: Perspectives and Challenges

IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine, 2023

Photovoltaic Module and Submodule Level Power Electronics and Control

IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, May 1, 2019

Enhanced Switching Frequency Control in FCS-MPC for Power Converters

IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, Mar 1, 2021

Multilevel converters for renewable energy systems

Elsevier eBooks, 2021

Maximizing energy harvest of the impedance source PV microconverter under partial shading conditions

This paper presents a novel efficiency enhancement method for the multi-mode quasi-Z-source serie... more This paper presents a novel efficiency enhancement method for the multi-mode quasi-Z-source series resonant DC-DC converter (qZSSRC) operating in a boost mode. To decrease the conduction losses associated with the shoot-through control the authors propose to use the reconfigurable rectifier at the output stage of the qZSSRC that enables DC gain control in the most critical operating points by the reconfiguration of the rectifier instead of the shoot-through control. The paper explains the operation and the control principle of the qZSSRC with the reconfigurable rectifier and provides an application example and experimental results of the proposed approach in a 250 W impedance source photovoltaic microconverter operating in partial shading conditions.

The use of solar energy in the copper mining processes: A comprehensive review

Cleaner engineering and technology, Oct 1, 2021

Abstract The copper mineral processing industry faces complex scenarios with increased demand, hi... more Abstract The copper mineral processing industry faces complex scenarios with increased demand, highly variable energy prices, falling ore grades that increase energy consumption, and increasing concern about the industry's carbon footprint. To reduce the risk imposed by these scenarios, the industry is looking at the use of renewable energy sources. Considering that the most important copper mines in Chile are situated in regions with high radiation levels, solar energy has the potential to be an attractive and sustainable source of energy. This paper provides an overview of the current solar technologies and how they have been applied to address some of the challenges faced by the copper mining industry today. It describes the use of solar thermal and solar photovoltaic technologies to produce power and heat for the copper mining processes. Indeed, solar photovoltaic technologies can be used to produce electricity for the comminution machines, electro-refineries and water pumping while solar thermal technologies are useful for electricity generation, heat production, thermal leaching and drying of copper concentrate. The review also analyzes, from a broader perspective, the potential of these technologies in the operation and design of new solar copper mineral processes. It is concluded that there several feasible options to integrate solar energy into the copper mining processes.

Charging Architectures Integrated with Distributed Energy Resources for Sustainable Mobility

Energy Procedia, May 1, 2017

This paper introduces a study on the charging infrastructures, integrated with distributed energy... more This paper introduces a study on the charging infrastructures, integrated with distributed energy sources, showing their ability to support the electric and hybrid mobility in a smart grid scenario. This analysis starts from a description of the main AC and DC architecture and then goes through the advantages derived by the integration of renewable energy sources within the existing electric power network. A section of this paper is then dedicated to the main technologies of energy storage systems, which allow and support the integration of unpredictable energy sources into the grid. Finally, the power on-board and off-board vehicle charging devices are analyzed with specific focus on PWM control schemes, for the regulation of AC/DC and DC/DC power converters, and on grid operations (V2G) related to different aggregation schemes.

Emerging Converter Topologies and Control for Grid Connected Photovoltaic Systems

MDPI eBooks, Feb 26, 2021

Common DC-link Capacitor Lifetime Extension in Modular dc/dc Converters for Electric Vehicle Fast Chargers via Variable-Angle Interleaved Operation

IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 2022

The DC Transformer Power Electronic Building Block: Powering Next-Generation Converter Design

IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine, Mar 1, 2023

Operation of an hybrid PV-battery system with improved harmonic performance

IECON 2017 - 43rd Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, Oct 1, 2017

The search of efficient, robust and fault-tolerant electronic power converters is a challenge for... more The search of efficient, robust and fault-tolerant electronic power converters is a challenge for the industry and academia. Nowadays, the integration and exploitation of the renewable energy sources and energy storage systems is required. In these terms, the multilevel power converters and specifically the cascaded H-bridge (CHB) power converter is a very good candidate. However, if a CHB power converter operates under an unbalanced operation a low-frequency high-distortion content appears in the output voltage spectrum. In order to reduce this problem, an extra cell, equipped with a low voltage battery or supercapacitor, is added to the original CHB converter. The idea is to operate the extra cell with the convenient duty cycle value in order to eliminate the low-order harmonic distortion generated by the unbalanced operation. This makes the proposed method very interesting because it leads to a reduction of the grid connection filter.

Wavelet-based ESS sizing strategy to enable power peak-shaving in PV systems

2019 IEEE 28th International Symposium on Industrial Electronics (ISIE)

This work presents an Energy Storage Systems (ESS) sizing strategy, that allows grid connected PV... more This work presents an Energy Storage Systems (ESS) sizing strategy, that allows grid connected PV systems to provide peak-shaved maximum-power-Ramp-Rate (RR) compliant power while storing exceeding power. For this purpose power generation and power loss caused by complying several RR restrictions were estimated. The estimation is based on irradiance and temperature real data from a measuring station located in the Atacama desert in Chile. The presented sizing strategy is based on Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) and allows to obtain an energy and power ESS sizing matching different criterion. Moreover, the selection of the ad-hoc wavelet and decomposition level, required filter the estimated PV power, is also presented.

Microinverter based on series connected submodular photovoltaic power cells

2017 CHILEAN Conference on Electrical, Electronics Engineering, Information and Communication Technologies (CHILECON), 2017

In recent years, the use of non-conventional renewable energies, particularly photovoltaic solar ... more In recent years, the use of non-conventional renewable energies, particularly photovoltaic solar energy, has been growing steadily in the country and is currently a real alternative to collaborate in the production of energy required by the national industry. Motivated by the above is that the study and development of technology in Chile for this energy opportunity is fundamental at the present time. The present paper aims to improve the conversion of photovoltaic solar energy by improving the quality of energy and the efficiency of the conversion process by means of a sub-module microinverter where the junction box is eliminated, connecting to each sub-module a Flyback converter and then realizing the grid connection through cascaded H-bridges. The proposed solution shows it superiority compared with the classical microinverters, especially in case of long term partial shading such as dust or snow accumulation. In this job experimental results are shown to validate the proposed architecture, also an analysis of the power quality is presented to verify that the proposed system complies with the IEEE 1457 Std.

Emerging Converter Topologies and Control for Grid Connected Photovoltaic Systems