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| (From left) Core members of UM’s power electronics research team PhD candidate Mr. Lam Chi Seng, Dr. Wong Chi Kong, master graduate Mr. Lok Io Keong, Prof. Wong Man Chung, and Dr. Dai Ningyi |
“Capacitive-Coupling STATCOM and Its Control” and “DC Voltage Self-balancing Soft-switching Three-level Inverter”, both developed by the Power Electronics Laboratory (PE Lab) of the University of Macau (UM), recently were granted Macao’s first National Invention Patent in the field of power electronics technology and the National Patent for Utility Model by the State Intellectual Property Office of the People's Republic of China.
In technologically advanced countries like the United States and Japan, traditional static synchronous compensators (STATCOM) are widely used for power system reactive power compensation, in order to enhance the efficiency and stability of the power system. The “Capacitive-Coupling STATCOM and Its Control”, developed by Prof. Wong Man Chung, PhD candidate Mr. Lam Chi Seng and Dr. Dai Ningyi of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology, can greatly reduce the DC capacitor voltage requirement of traditional STATCOM, thereby reducing the initial cost and switching losses of the compensators.
The “DC voltage Self-balancing Soft-switching Three-level Inverter”, developed by master graduate Mr. Lok Io Keong, Prof. Wong Man Chung, Dr. Dai Ningyi and Dr. Wong Chi Kong, can simultaneously balance the three-level inverter dc capacitor voltages and lower the switching losses without affecting the inverter output performance during operation.
UM’s power electronics research team began the two projects in 2006 with the great support of the Science and Technology Development Fund of Macao SAR and the University of Macau Research Fund. The objective of these two projects is to reduce the initial cost of the compensator, reduce its losses, and optimize its performance and efficiency. Many years of efforts finally bore fruit. These two national patents signal an important step for UM in power electronics, and also lay a solid technical foundation for the further development of power electronics and energy saving techniques in Macao.
