Portuguese technology towards sustainability is patented in the USA

INESC TEC has just seen the ACDC Cube technology patented in the USA. The solution, developed by Portuguese researchers at INESC TEC's Centre for Power and Energy Systems (CPES), is a more compact and efficient electronic power converter.

This type of technology can be used to charge the batteries of an electric vehicle, it can be used in airplanes, boats or spaceships as well, where volume and weight are critical.

This technology was developed by Portuguese researchers Diogo Varajão, former researcher of CPES and the current Head of Research and Development of AddVolt, and Luís Miguel Miranda and Rui Esteves Araújo, senior researchers of CPES.

This special technology is also related to the bidirectionality with the power grid, that is, through the converter, the vehicle can also provide power to the grid in peak times, exploring the Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) concept which is arising in the energy field.

ACDC Cube can also be used to support the energy storage in batteries, crucial to allow a better integration of electricity production from renewable sources to install in the LV grids, that is to say, in the domestic consumption grids addressing the Community Energy Storage (CES) concept, which has been explored both in Europe and in the USA.

The study of the V2G and CES concepts will allow enhancing the integration of renewable energy sources in the power grid, making sure that the goals that Portugal set for itself in terms of electrical energy consumption based on electrical energy source are easily met.

Diogo Varajão has developed this technology during his PhD investigation, which was supervised by the INESC TEC's researchers Rui Esteves Araújo and João Abel Peças Lopes. It was scientifically tested at INESC TEC's Laboratory of Smart Grids and Electric Vehicles under the European project SENSIBLE, which was recently distinguished by the European Commission in the 'flagship project' category.