New power converter topologies for minimizing energy consumption of electronic appliances

• Main Author: Nilakantan, Ravishankar
• Published: Georgia Institute of Technology 2011
• Subjects: Light load efficiency; Carbon footprint; Self sustained synchronous rectifier; Energy wasted; Computer power supplies; Printers; SSSR; Electric apparatus and appliances Energy consumption
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1853/41209

The proliferation of electronic equipment that is permanently connected to the grid causes significant parasitic losses. Yet, the design of power supplies for PCs, servers, multi-function printers, etc, is governed by the cost and component specifications at the peak operating point as well as the thermal management of the power supply itself. Most power supplies have lower efficiencies at light loads than at their rated loads. If the unit spends most of its time at the light load operating point, then the energy consumption will be much higher compared to a situation where the power supply is optimized for overall energy consumption with a specified load cycle. Considering that most electronic appliances are produced in high volume, the use of power supplies that permit easy custom design makes sense from the standpoint of energy efficiency. Over the past few years, multiple topological changes and design changes that aim to improve the efficiency of the power supplies have been proposed. However, their proliferation in low cost consumer electronics has been limited primarily by their high costs, additional area overhead and incompatibility with existing power supply converter topologies. As a part of this Master's thesis research work, a business case is first proposed to show that a market for low cost and high power rating electronic devices that exhibits high power efficiency exists. Then a novel yet simple, low cost device(SSSR) is proposed to improve the efficiency of existing power supplies without effecting major changes to their existing design. Our claims are backed up by simulation results and a working prototype. Finally, a ROI model is presented to showcase the effectiveness of the proposed solution in today's consumer market.