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DC Opportunities at DC World Paris 2025

This week, DC Opportunities participated in the DC World Event in Paris, a key gathering of innovators shaping the future of DC systems.

Laurens Mackay gave two presentations:

At the booth, Laurens Mackay and Ruben van den Bos connected with leading professionals and project partners from all over Europe.

Events like DC World 2025 strengthen the collaboration needed to accelerate the energy transition.

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DC Opportunities Presents at Hannover Messe 2025

At this year’s Hannover Messe, Laurens Mackay presented on Bipolar DC Microgrid Technology at the Open DC Alliance (ODCA) Energy Stage. His talk explored the speed, modularity, and autonomy of our realized DC systems.

He highlighted several operational projects:

  • The Green Village – DC Microgrid with a DC/DC Vehicle-to-Grid EV Charger
  • Nieuw Reijerwaard – Autonomous DC Distribution Grid
  • Delft Public Lighting – DC Grid powering 280 poles across a 3×3 km area

These implementations reflect the potential of innovation and collaboration in accelerating the energy transition.

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Official Opening of DC Public Lighting in Nieuw Reijerwaard

Today, we proudly celebrated the official opening of our new DC-powered public lighting system in Nieuw Reijerwaard. Developed in collaboration with the local municipality and project partners, the system introduces a future-ready DC infrastructure that enables energy-efficient and sustainable public lighting.
This milestone demonstrates how DC technology can play a key role in the energy transition by reducing losses and enabling smart integration with renewables and energy storage.

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DC Public Lighting

The video explains the fundamentals of DC electricity, how it differs from AC, and its advantages in modern energy systems. It covers historical context, where DC is used today (e.g., solar panels, batteries, EV charging, and data centers), and why DC microgrids are becoming more relevant for energy efficiency, reduced conversion losses, and grid stability.

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DC Opportunities Publishes Paper at the 2024 International Conference on DC Microgrids on String Level Solar MPPT Technology

DC Opportunities is excited to announce the publication of new paper focusing on the development of a Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) system for solar-powered yachts. This was presented earlier this year at the 2024 ICDCM. The system addresses partial shading issues caused by yacht masts and sails, using string-level converters and an isolated converter to maximize energy yield, even in challenging conditions. The research demonstrates a threefold increase in power generation, pushing the boundaries of renewable energy in marine applications.

Download

L. I. Gorostidi, J. Echeverry, H. L. Moens, B. van Someren and L. Mackay, “Design of a Cell String Level Maximum Power Point Tracking Converter Connected to a DC Grid,” 2024 IEEE Sixth International Conference on DC Microgrids (ICDCM), Columbia, SC, USA, 2024, pp. 1-7, doi: 10.1109/ICDCM60322.2024.10665273.

© 2023 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. For any other purposes, permission must be obtained from IEEE.

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Jan Willem Fokkink Defends his Bachelor’s Thesis

Yesterday, Jan Willem Fokkink successfully defended his Bachelor’s Thesis at the Hague University of Applied Sciences. He has been working on our string level solar MPPT converter, in particular on the software. This included implementation of maximum power point tracking but also implementation of droop control that allows also for islanding operation and decentralised curtailment in case of overproduction. Further, the handling of abnormal operation conditions and safety aspects where part of his work. Until now operation has been verified with solar simulators, up next is demonstration with real solar panels which we will be performing very soon at the Green Village in Delft.

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Casper Grootes Defends Bachelor’s Thesis

Today Casper Grootes defended his Bachelor’s thesis at the Hague University of Applied Sciences. And was awarded a grade of 9/10! This project was carried out in collaboration with the DC Lab of the Hague University of Applied Sciences.

Casper worked on our active front end with which we are connecting our DC Microgrids to the AC grid. Alternatively this AC/DC converter can be used to drive motors or to create an AC grid for connecting legacy appliances in a DC environment.

We wish Casper all the best with the continuation of his studies at the Delft University of Technology were he will be pursuing his Master’s degree.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6810240843178479616

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Cas Pruisken Defends Bachelor’s Thesis

Last week Cas Pruisken successfully defended his Bachelor’s Thesis on the Development of a DC Electric Vehicle Charge Controller at The Hague University of Applied Sciences. He was awarded an outstanding grade of 9/10 for his work which he performed during the last months at DC Opportunities R&D. Cas has been working on our new V2G EV charger that will be able to charge from a 700V DC grid and could be integrated with DC public lighting infrastructure.

We are happy that Cas is staying with us as permanent staff after this milestone and we are looking forward to making many great developments in DC microgrid technology together.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6789947411591774208

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Power Flow Control Converter for Meshed Bipolar 350/700V DC Grids

A sneak peek into our power flow control converter prototypes directly after assembly.

A few weeks back we assembled the next prototypes of our Power Flow Control Converter. It will support power flow control in meshed DC distribution grids and be able to feed loads from two sides to more than double the power transfer capacity of a DC distribution cable to a single location. It supports bidirectional power flow and is made for bipolar DC grids of 350/700V DC. In this way, we can combine low power appliances like LED lighting at 350V and high power loads at 700V on the same grid. A further function of this converter is the ability to increase the voltage in very long lines. In this way, the feeding points in public lighting grids can be reduced. The converter is a partial power converter that only converts a fraction of the power. In this way, the system efficiency can be significantly be improved while the cost of the converter is only a fraction of traditional fully-rated converters. We develop this converter within our FLEXDC project with support from the Ministry of Economic Affairs of the Netherlands.