Control strategy for the magnetic energy storage and transfer system (MEST)

The Magnetic Energy Storage and Transfer system (MEST) aims at improving the power handling in supplying the SuperConducting (SC) coils of fusion experiments. It is based on smart use of Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage technology and allows the introduction of a certain degree of decoupling between the grid and the load. The MEST operation is based on the storage and transfer of the needed energy between the Load Coil (LC) and an additional storage inductor named Sink Coil (KC); the energy transfer is realized via capacitors switched by fully controllable semiconductors. This paper focuses on the control system of the MEST and proposes a control strategy, based on two decoupled control loops, with the aim both to guarantee the desired current on the load coil and the compensation of the system losses. A model of the MEST with the proposed control system has been developed to analyze the performance through numerical simulations. The control strategy and the simulation results will be presented and discussed in the paper.