Alencon Systems LLC is proud to announce its award of U.S. patent #11,146,079 which addresses the novelty of the company’s Bi-Directional Optimizer for Storage Systems (BOSS) DC:DC converter. This patent award is Alencon’s seventh granted U.S. patent. The patent specifically addresses the unique technological and applications aspects of Alencon’s galvanically isolated bi-directional DC:DC converter, the BOSS, for use in large scale battery energy storage systems (BESS). The patent not only addresses the BOSS’s unique, Silicon Carbide-based (SiC), galvanically isolated topology but also covers the differentiated benefits the BOSS brings to BESS, whether those systems are stand-alone or DC-coupled with Solar.
“This latest patent is a testament to the incredible engineering team here at Alencon Systems,” says Hanan Fishman, Alencon Systems President. “This patent award affirms the unique technological aspects of the Alencon BOSS and explains the powerful system benefits the product provides today’s BESS market.”
As explained in the patent disclosure, the Alencon BOSS offers large scale BESS systems several benefits through the application of next generation power electronics technology. The BOSS’s galvanically isolated technology allows for isolation of grounding between battery racks and a common DC bus. This feature significantly improves BESS safety by allowing batteries to float as intended by their manufacturer while being isolated from the rest of the system. This is particularly helpful for DC coupled Solar + Storage deployments where batteries are directly coupled to PV arrays with different potentials to ground than the BESS.
Additionally, as disclosed in the patent, the BOSS allows for the reduction in fault current contribution from battery racks which lets system designers build safer and larger BESS. The BOSS’s galvanic isolation specifically allows for more battery racks to be placed in parallel, which can be critical for building ever longer duration energy storage systems. Longer duration energy storage is very useful when coupled with solar to turn PV from an intermittent energy resource into a more dispatchable one.
U.S. patent #11,146,079 also specifically discusses the BOSS’s approach to rack level battery charging and how the device can help balance the state of charge (SOC) of batteries with differing states of health (SOH). Such charge balancing is particularly critical as BESS age and their component cells degrade.
About Alencon
Alencon’s solutions for ALternative ENergy CONversion provide high modularity and scalability for systems from several megawatts to several-hundred megawatts. By helping to dramatically reduce balance of system costs and increase power production through new inverter and energy harvesting technology, Alencon helps advance the state of the art and increase the financial viability of solar power. Headquartered in Hatboro, Pennsylvania, has been building PV power conversion hardware since 2009, drawing on the combined decades of power electronics experience of its engineering team.