The Enoda PRIME® Exchanger: Dynamic power flow technology for a balanced and decarbonised grid
ENODA was established in Edinburgh, Scotland in 2021
The Enoda PRIME® Exchanger can be placed into the distribution grids of utilities, improving their performance and enabling them to become the primary provider of system stability.
ENODA provides a system which is agnostic to the nature of supply and demand. To do that, there needs to be one fundamental enabling technology. It has to sit in the location of the transformer, just as the router sits in the former location of the switch in telephone exchanges, with both transforming the nature of those networks, unlocking innovation and delivering sustainable prosperity for everyone.
The Prime Exchanger can enable that system, and the coordinator of the grid is Enoda ENSEMBLE™,our blockchain-based software system.
Enoda ENSEMBLE™ can coordinate each of the distributed devices so that they can behave as a single unity across the system, with no central control. Instead, the exchangers coordinate themselves to optimise the flow of power across the system to maintain stability in real time – securely.
Utilising a blockchain is cyber secure, robust and distributed; there is no single point of system failure. To enable that, we need a device, the Prime Exchanger, capable of controlling all the degrees of freedom of the primary power signal.
The Prime Exchanger is bidirectional and controls voltage and current power factor, phase and load balance, as well as removing harmonics.
Inside the Enoda PRIME® Exchanger
At the heart of the Enoda PRIME® Exchanger is our unique three-phase torus electromagnetic subsystem. It is related to machines and transformers as well as many electromagnetic devices, but it is none of these.
It has the same symmetry as the sinusoid that makes up the waveform within the system itself. It does not induce harmonics into the system in the way that a transformer would, and it can do some truly unique things.
Electromagnetic interaction is well described by one of the fundamental symmetries of our universe. That symmetry means that electricity and magnetism are in each other’s presence – always and everywhere.
Enoda PRIME Exchanger 400kVA in production
Matter interacts with the magnetic field in ways remarkably different from how it interacts with the electric field; you can make use of Maxwell’s third equation, change the magnetic field, and so too change the electric field. That is what William Stanley realised with the transformer. He made use of Faraday’s insights to allow us to be able to step-up and step-down voltage in the most elegant manner.
ENODA makes use of the same physics, but instead of a device that steps voltage by the same ratio at all times, it is dynamic, modulating the flux through induction and allowing control of all the dimensions of the electricity system.
By modulating the current flowing through the Prime Exchanger’s windings, a very poor signal in is transformed to a clean signal out. Within this subsystem, we have control. We have edge computing to understand the signal, as well as power electronics and control, which all sit in the same physical footprint as the transformer.
This was an essential breakthrough: to create a device that is small enough to fit into the physical enclosure that currently encloses a transformer. That way we can remove the very practical barriers to adoption on a global basis, by being backwards compatible.
ENODA will shortly be running pre-commercial pilots of 400kVA exchangers in European networks and would welcome conversations with Utilities that wish to be in the first group of those to experience the benefits of the Enoda PRIME® Exchanger.
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Sustainable prosperity for everyone
About ENODA
ENODA’s technology can harmonise generation sources, correcting volatile signals and coordinating grid assets and power flow, laying the foundations for an antifragile energy system. ENODA’s integrated hardware and software solutions for electricity grid operators can deliver network stability and resilience, while increasing capacity for greater integration of solar and wind.
Website: www.enoda.com
About the author
Andrew Scobie is a co-founder and Chief Technology & Product Officer at ENODA. He is an inventor, systems and industrial designer and has a growing portfolio of patents.
