Patent ID: 11909203
Assignee: DC SYSTEMS B.V.
Field: Electrical machinery, apparatus, energy (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 0:
1. A DC power distribution system, comprising:
a plurality, M, of DC buses, wherein M is an integer greater than one and M=(N+1), and wherein each of the M DC buses comprises a plurality of bus conductors;
a plurality, K, of DC power sources, wherein K is an integer greater than one and K=(J+1), and wherein the DC power sources are configured to have a nominally and/or substantially equal output voltage, and wherein each of the K DC power sources is
(i) coupled to each of the M DC buses in parallel via a respective first protection device that is configured to selectively cause an open-circuit between the DC power source and the respective DC bus in the event of a fault or overload condition on the respective DC bus, and
(ii) configured to, in operation, supply a current in parallel at the nominally and/or substantially equal output voltage to each of the M DC buses for which the respective first protection device of the DC power source is in a closed-circuit state;

at least one load combiner, each load combiner located at or within at least one load device such that each load device supplied by the DC power distribution system is supplied power via one of the load combiners, wherein the load combiner is coupled to each of the plurality of DC buses and configured to provide an output to at least one DC-to-DC step-down converter coupled to the at least one load device, wherein the load combiner comprises at least one second protection device configured to selectively cause an open-circuit between the plurality of DC buses and said output in the event of a fault or overload condition in one or more of the at least one load device;
wherein each of the DC power sources supplies approximately an equal share of the load current supplied by the DC buses to which the DC power source is conductively connected during operation;
wherein the DC power distribution system is configured to provide at least (J+1) redundancy based on the total maximum load; and
wherein the DC buses, the load combiners, and the DC power sources are each configured such that the total maximum load current is capable of being supplied via less than M of the DC buses, in the event that any one of the M buses is non-operational.