Electrification of transportation, communication,
working and living continues worldwide. Televisions,
telephones, servers are an important part of everyday
life. These loads and most sustainable sources as well,
have one thing in common: Direct Current. The Dutch
research and educational programme ‘DC – road to its
full potential’ studies the impact of feeding these
appliances from a DC grid. An improvement in energy
efficiency is expected, other benefits are unknown and
practical considerations are needed to come to a proper
comparison with an AC grid.
This paper starts with a brief introduction of the
programme and its first stages. These stages encompass
firstly the commissioning, selection and implementation
of a safe and user friendly testing facility, to compare
performance of domestic appliances when powered
with AC and DC. Secondly, the relationship between
the DC-testing facility and existing modeling and
simulation assignments is explained. Thirdly, first
results are discussed in a broad sense. An improved
energy efficiency of 3% to 5% is already demonstrated
for domestic appliances. That opens up questions for
the performance of a domestic DC system as a whole.
The paper then ends with proposed minor changes in
the programme and guidelines for future projects.
These changes encompass further studying of domestic
appliances for product-development purposes, leaving
less means for new and costly high-power testing
facilities. Possible gains are 1) material and component
savings 2) simpler and cheaper exteriors 3) stable and
safe in-house infrastructure 4) whilst combined with
local sustainable generation. That is the road ahead.

10.1109/DUE.2014.6827758