DC distribution of PV systems has spread back especially in the residential sector as a variety of electronic appliances became locally available in the market. The compatibility of household appliances with the best voltage-level in a DC environment is the field that still in the research phase and has not yet made a practically extensive appearance. This paper mainly discusses this issue by providing a review of the concerning research efforts, identifying the gaps in the existing knowledge. The work explains the electrical diagrams of the recently produced appliances, classifying them to get an understanding of how each one consumes energy. It includes exploiting the recent dependence of the commercial appliances on power electronics to improve the efficiency of the existing DC distribution systems by extrapolating new architectures. The proposed topology has a DC distribution environment with two levels of voltage for all appliances. Appliances performances have been evaluated by calculating the energy transfer efficiency. The outcomes of this work can help in designing more efficient DC power distribution networks with minimal energy converters and establishing standardizations for DC microgrids.
Keywords: Architectures; DC microgrid; Electrical engineering; Household appliances; Power converter; Power generation; Power supply; Power system operation; Power system planning; Smart grid; Standardizations.
© 2020 The Authors.