Parasitic Power Transformer

Southern California Edison Engineering, 2005-06

Liaison(s): Percy Haralson
Advisor(s): Carl Baumgaertner
Students(s): Jack Zheng (TL), Jim Castelaz, Justin Gries (S), Ted Jiang (F), Dan Pivonka (F), Mike Pugh (F), Gen Satoh (S), Matthew Williams (S)

The Southern California Edison Clinic team has designed, built, and validated a prototype power conversion system that can safely extract energy from 12 kV or 16 kV distribution lines to provide stable power for small automation equipment. Presently, this equipment is powered by bulky ½ kVA transformers, which are excessive and costly for the application. The team delivers a compact, inexpensive, modular solution that includes a solid state transformer, an electro-optic voltage regulator, and clamp-on toroidal cores.