This paper discusses contemporary problems concerning ship microgrids. It focuses on the role of power electronics and power quality issues, both conventional, such as voltage and frequency variations, and new issues, such as waveform distortions ensuing from the wide proliferation of power electronics in ship microgrids. The paper also contains a discussion on the provisions of the Unified Requirements of International Association of Classification Societies and other leading power quality standards in the industry, with an emphasis on Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) definition. An overview of power converters for high power applications in ships and their impact on ship networks is also given. Next, original results of various power quality phenomena recorded in ship microgrids are presented and commented on, followed by a review and recommendations for maritime microgrid modeling and signal processing methods for power quality assessment in the discussed systems. Finally, preliminary proposals for power quality control are presented.

This paper aims to understand how the common phenomenon of fluctuations in propulsion and service load demand contribute to frequency transients in hybrid electric ship power systems. These fluctuations arise mainly due to changes in sea conditions resulting in significant variations in the propulsion load demand of ships. This leads to poor power quality for the power system that can potentially cause hazardous conditions such as blackout on board the ship. Effects of these fluctuations are analysed using a hybrid electric ship power system model and a proposed Model Predictive Control (MPC) strategy to prevent propagation of transients from the propellers into the shipboard power system. A battery energy storage system, which is directly connected to the DC-link of the frequency converter, is used as the smoothing element. Case studies that involve propulsion and service load changes have been carried out to investigate the efficacy of the proposed solution. Simulation results show that the proposed solution with energy storage and MPC is able to contain frequency transients in the shipboard power system within the permissible levels stipulated by the relevant power quality standards. These findings will help ship builders and operators to consider using battery energy storage systems controlled by advanced control techniques such as MPC to improve the power quality on board ships.

No abstract