Energy and Buildings 138 (2017) 648–654

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Energy and Buildings

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enbuild

A Comparative analysis of system efficiency for AC and DC residential

power distribution paradigms
Faizan Dastgeer ∗ , Hassan Erteza Gelani ∗
University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore – Faisalabad Campus
Electrical Engineering Deptt. 3.5 km, Khurrianwala Makkuana Bypass road, Faisalabad, Pakistan

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper presents a comparative efficiency study for the use of Direct Current (DC) and Alternating
Received 5 September 2016 Current (AC) power in the residential distribution power system. The U.S. Residential Energy Splits data
Received in revised form for year 2015 from ‘Buildings Energy Data Book’ has been used for modelling of residential buildings.
24 December 2016
Distribution system models have been made for both AC and DC powers. The system efficiency values
Accepted 27 December 2016
have been tested for different cases. The AC system was found to be superior to DC with a minimum effi-
Available online 3 January 2017
ciency advantage of around 2% and a maximum of around 6%. Subsequently, the building air-conditioning
loads were assumed to incorporate the modern concept of Variable Speed Drives (VSD) which use an
Keywords:
Efficiency
intermediate DC power stage. If the building power supply is DC rather than AC, then the intermediate
Variable speed drives AC/DC conversion stage may be avoided. Taking the air-conditioning as a DC load roughly doubles the
DC distribution DC power demand of building. The DC system showed slightly (around 1%) higher efficiency for the VSD
AC distribution air-conditioning case. Back in history, it was apparently the efficiency of power transfer that allowed AC
Residential load modelling to oust DC, and now, once again efficiency may be a decisive factor for the reignited competition between
AC and DC.
© 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction cells directly produce DC power which can be stepped-up in terms

AC and DC power transfer paradigms clashed with each other
in the early days of the electric power system. Apparently, it was
the ability to transform voltage levels which would cause one side
to win or the other. If DC systems could have developed this abil-
ity, the power system might have been DC today. On the contrary,
the electromagnetic transformers allowed AC to transform its volt-
age level and thus the battle of the currents [1] was won by AC. It
became the medium for electric power generation, transmission,
distribution and utilization in the form of residential loads.
DC had to wait for a long time until the development of High
Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) transmission re-introduced DC in
the power system. Heavy electric currents due to line charg-
ing/discharging and reactive power losses were avoided and HVDC
transmission became a success. Then DC appeared on the genera-
tion side of the power system in the form of the economically and
environmentally motivated power generation sources namely the
renewable energy sources. In case of solar energy, the photovoltaic
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: faizandastgeer@uet.edu.pk, faizan.uetian@gmail.com
(F. Dastgeer), erteza.gelani@uet.edu.pk (H.E. Gelani).
of voltage by power electronic DC/DC converters. Thanks to the field
of power electronics, DC has obtained its transformers in the form
of DC/DC converters. Where DC/AC inverters and AC/DC rectifiers
perform the functions of change in type of power, DC/DC convert-
ers are designed for the purpose of adjusting the voltage level and
allow to step-up as well as step-down DC voltage. In case of wind
energy, different wind farms generate AC power but have to con-
vert it to DC because of varying frequency. This DC is then again
converted to AC, at a fixed frequency and supplied to the AC power
system. Thus, DC shows its presence on power generation side.
On the residential utilization side, the tremendous increase of
modern electronic loads has created a significant demand for DC
power. Besides the usual household electronic loads, the mod-
ern concept of Light Emitting Diodes (LED) lighting is creating
yet another consumer of DC electric energy. Apart from these, the
Variable Speed Drives based air-conditioning (cooling and heating)
leads to the conversion of the input AC power to DC which is then
again converted to AC and supplied to the compressor motor. If
these loads are also included as loads demanding DC power, then
the overall demand of DC power may exceed the demand of AC
power for the modern residential buildings.
Around the world, the residential distribution system is the one
part of the electric power system where DC energy does not show

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2016.12.077
0378-7788/© 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 F. Dastgeer, H.E. Gelani / Energy and Buildings 138 (2017) 648–654
any significantly practical presence [2–4]. This paper works upon
the feasibility of a DC power distribution system in the context of
system efficiency, by presenting a comparative efficiency analysis
of AC and DC residential power distribution paradigms. Distribution
system models are built for the AC and DC systems and the system
efficiency values are obtained via MATLAB based simulation for dif-
ferent case scenarios. It may be said that the aim of this research
is to present a fair comparison between the two systems, hence an
attempt has been made to keep the system conditions largely the
same for both DC and AC in order to find out which of the two really
has an edge over the other. The next section reviews some of the
past literature related to the idea DC power distribution.
2. Literature review
The authors of [2] discuss the concept of DC distribution within
buildings. They mention that if local (DC) generation is present such
as solar photovoltaics, then energy can flow from generation to DC
loads directly without having to be converted to AC. This will save
money by avoiding extra conversion losses as well as the extra con-
version hardware. However, in our view the avoiding of conversion
hardware is not always possible, as different electronic loads may
operate at different voltages and a DC/DC conversion will still be
required for voltage level adjustment.
The authors of [5] compare the energy savings of residential
buildings when used with AC and DC in-building power distribu-
tion systems. The results show that energy savings via DC are 5% of
the total energy consumption if the house does not include battery
storage, and if it does include storage, the savings are 14%.
The author of [3] says that the second war of currents between
AC and DC has already begun. The developments in the field of
DC appear ready to get really interesting as they are combined in
hybrid systems. Furthermore, the upcoming Silicon Carbide tech-
nology can help the power electronic converters required in the DC
systems to be even more efficient. In our view such technologies
may be deemed radically important for DC. This is so because the
DC/DC converter can be regarded as ‘the defining device’ [6] for
the DC system. However, currently the DC/DC converters (and in
general power electronic converters) show lesser efficiency values
as compared to the AC electromagnetic transformers. The DC/DC
converters show lesser efficiency as compared to AC transformers
in the reduced load demand range. For the transformers, [7] shows
an energy efficiency value higher than 97% even at load demand
reduced to around 10% of full load capacity; both for the liquid filled
and dry type transformer. While for the DC/DC converters the effi-
ciency values at the same reduced load demand drop to around 90%
or less [8,9]. Furthermore, as compared to the transformers, power
electronic converters may show more variation in efficiency due to
change in load.
Ref. [10] is interesting in the sense that the authors have actu-
ally tried to implement a proto-type DC distribution system at the
residential level. The authors give different details of the convert-
ers used in their system and present performance results of their
test bed which included DC home appliances modified from con-
ventional AC components.
The authors of [11] discuss the feasibility of using DC power
distribution for commercial buildings. They discuss a case study of
supplying power to a department in their university. Power loss cal-
culations have been performed for AC and DC distribution systems
and the conclusions drawn are that DC can lead to big advantages
and 326 V is the most suitable voltage level. However, in the recent
years, 380 V [2,10] has also emerged as a possible voltage level for
DC systems.
Ref. [6] presents a comparison of AC and DC power distribution
systems starting from the grid. The authors are of the view that DC
649
has regained interest owing to the development of power electronic
converters and DC energy resources. A variety of results has been
presented for different efficiencies of power electronic converters
and voltage levels of the system. The authors show that DC becomes
better than AC for very high values of power electronic converter
efficiencies and at a higher voltage level than AC.
Ref. [12] is our earlier effort in relation to efficiency analysis
of residential DC power distribution. The focus was to analyze the
system efficiency in light of load variation which in turn leads to
the efficiency variation of the DC/DC converters making up the sys-
tem. Furthermore, we also performed a sensitivity analysis of the
DC power distribution system efficiency with respect to the varia-
tion in constant, linear and quadratic losses of the power electronic
DC/DC converters. Besides, the earlier mentioned literature, Ref.
[13–17] are also some of the past literature related to DC distri-
bution system and/or its efficiency. Moreover, [18] discusses the
conversion of AC distribution lines into DC lines to upgrade power
transfer capacity.
As mentioned in [19], efficiency has been one of the major fac-
tors used to judge if DC is better than AC. In the current effort, we
present an efficiency comparison of DC and AC power distribution
for residential buildings; both the medium voltage (primary) and
the in-building low voltage (secondary) systems are included in the
study. For fairness of comparison we use the same building voltage
for both AC and DC although, for DC systems, higher in-building
voltage levels of 326 V and 380 V have been suggested by literature
[2,10]. Furthermore, the comparative results are obtained for the
same values of converter efficiencies of the two systems and the
primary distribution conductor has also been kept the same. The
grid is assumed to be AC for the AC distribution system and vice
versa for the case of DC.
2.1. The current effort in comparison to earlier efforts
The Ref. [2,3,10] present the idea of DC power distribution but do
not perform an actual efficiency comparison of AC and DC systems.
The work of [5] is for the specific case of net-metered residential
buildings where every house has Solar Photovoltaics installed. The
authors simulate a residential building with the assumption that
all loads are inherently DC in nature. However, the current work
is not limited by these restrictions. The work of [11] is directed
towards commercial buildings and the authors make the assump-
tion that loads suitable for being used with DC power are available,
hence the corresponding power electronic conversion losses have
been ignored. The current effort is dedicated to residential build-
ings, and the power electronic conversion losses are not ignored.
The work in [6] presents comparisons of DC and AC system for the
cases where DC/DC converter efficiencies are 95%, 97% and 99.5%.
These efficiency values appear to be quite high for regular mar-
ket available components. The authors themselves mention that
actual DC/DC converters rarely reach 95% efficiency. In the current
work, we have taken closer to practical efficiency values for the
power electronic converters − the maximum being 95% and the
minimum being 85% for load side converters and 90% for distribu-
tion converter. Ref. [12], which was our earlier work related to DC
power distribution does not include the concept of Variable Speed
Drives (VSDs) which use an AC/DC/AC conversion for improving
the efficiency of air-conditioning systems, and we did not perform
a comparison of DC distribution with a counterpart AC distribution
system.
Ref. [14] was an earlier attempt at comparative efficiency study
of DC and AC distribution systems of one of the authors of the
current study. Once again, the efficiency value used for power elec-
tronic converters was high (95%) and case to case analysis of system
efficiency for the variation in converter efficiency was not per-
formed. Furthermore, the concept of VSD air-conditioning using
650 F. Dastgeer, H.E. Gelani / Energy and Buildings 138 (2017) 648–654

AC/DC/AC conversion was not used in [14] or in any of the earlier
described distribution system efficiency studies. The significance
of VSD air-conditioning and the corresponding increase in a build-
ing DC power demand is mentioned in section 5. The use of VSDs
leads to a change in inclination of the results of the comparative
system efficiency study. The next section presents the modelling of
the distribution systems.
3. System modeling
For presenting the system modelling a bottom-up approach will
be used here. A variety of data [20–22] exists for the residential
energy consumption, here the data of residential energy end-use
splits [22] has been used for the modelling. A brief version of this
data is presented here in Table 1. The major types of residential
loads have been divided into three categories namely A, D and I
categories where the A, D and I stand for AC, DC and Independent
load types which are explained subsequently.
3.1. ‘A’ category
‘A’ category stands for the residential building loads which fun-
damentally draw AC power. These are essentially the induction
motor based loads such as compressors in refrigerators. In AC sys-
tem, these are assumed to be directly powered from the line mains
while in DC system, they will require a DC/AC power conversion.
3.2. ‘D’ category
Home electronics and computers have been put in the ‘D’ cat-
egory which stands for DC loads. Lighting has also been put in ‘D’
category as the modern LED lighting requires DC power. LED illumi-
nation is an emerging technology with on-going research. Besides
LEDs, the compact fluorescents (CFLs) also require DC internally as
they convert AC to DC and then AC again. For the case of DC dis-
tribution, the ‘D’ category loads are assumed to be powered via a
DC/DC converter. It may be pointed out here that the ‘A’ category
loads have been assumed to work directly with the AC distribution
voltage, but this is not the case for ‘D’ category loads in the DC distri-
bution system. The reason is the general low voltage requirement
of electronic loads demanding a DC/DC converter to reduce the line
mains DC voltage to the level required by the load.
3.3. ‘I’ category
This category includes loads which are fundamentally indepen-
dent upon the type of voltage supplied and can essentially work
with both AC and DC powers. These are basically heating loads such
as cooking and water heating. These loads will be powered directly
i.e. without requiring a voltage level conversion, in both AC and DC
systems.
For the modelling of residential buildings, instead of going into
the classification of multi-family or single-family etc. buildings,
we have used the data of [23] which gives the residential aver-
age monthly consumption of electric power for the U.S. states. This
value ranges from a minimum of 506 kWh for Hawaii to a max-
imum of 1291 kWh for Louisiana. The U.S. total average monthly
consumption is 911kWh. This number gives a daily average power
demand of around 30kWh; which, combined with the A, D, I cate-
gorization based upon the data of [22] is used to calculate energy
demands of individual load categories in an average U.S. residen-
tial building. This is presented in Table 1. Based upon the data
of Table 1, a single building block may be built and simulated in
MATLAB/Simulink environment using the associated ‘SimPower-
Systems’ software. MATLAB has been used for various research
efforts in the field of engineering and science such as [24–29].
Moving on towards the system, 21 residential buildings (7 build-
ings per phase giving a total of 21 for the three-phase system)
are assumed to be bunched together and connected with a single
distribution transformer. For the DC distribution system, this trans-
former will be a DC/DC power electronic converter. In the secondary
DC system, the voltage level of 326 V and 380 V have been suggested
in literature as mentioned earlier. In our earlier work [12], we have
used 325 V as the in-building voltage. However, to make a fair com-
parison of the AC and DC system efficiencies, here we choose 230 V
for the DC system. This voltage level can draw its support from the
work in [30]. This is the same voltage which will be used for the AC
system (400/230 V). Fig. 1 shows conceptual diagrams of a building
load powered via DC distribution. The case of AC distribution will
be similar, with DC/DC converters removed, inverters replaced by
rectifiers and 230 V root mean square (r.m.s) AC voltage supply. The
power electronic converters will lead to the power losses occurring
inside a building block; the in-building conductor losses have been
ignored.
For the primary distribution, the voltage level of 11 kV has been
chosen for both AC and DC systems. ‘Hare’ type ACSR (Aluminum
Conductor Steel Reinforced) conductor has been assumed for the
primary distribution system and an arbitrary spacing of 300 m
is supposed between the distribution transformers. The system
is assumed to comprise three distribution transformers; hence a
total of 3*21 = 63 buildings. For the AC system, each transformer
is assumed to supply 7 buildings per phase hence a total of 21
buildings.
4. Results of system efficiency for different cases
For the efficiency analyses and comparison, the AC and DC
systems may be tested for a variety of values for their different
parameters such as voltage levels, conductor impedance and con-

Table 1
Residential Energy Splits, Categorization and Energy Demands.

Category Energy Used Energy% ADI Energy kWh A cat. kWh D cat. kWh I cat. kWh
(Quad. Btu)

Space Heating 0.42 8.78 I 2.64 – – 2.64

Water Heating 0.48 9.93 I 2.98 – – 2.98
Space Cooling 1.02 21.24 A 6.37 6.37 – –
Lighting 0.53 11.04 D 3.31 – 3.31 –
Refri-geration 0.45 9.45 A 2.84 2.84 – –
Electronics 0.33 6.86 D 2.06 – 2.06 –
Wet Cleaning 0.33 6.80 A 2.04 2.04 – –
Cooking 0.11 2.36 I 0.71 – – 0.71
Computers 0.19 3.95 D 1.19 – 1.19 –
Other 0.94 19.69 5.91 1.97 1.97 1.97
Total 4.795 30.03 13.22 8.52 8.29
Power demand in kW 0.55 0.36 0.35
 F. Dastgeer, H.E. Gelani / Energy and Buildings 138 (2017) 648–654 651

Fig. 1. Conceptual Diagram of DC Distribution.

Table 2 Table 3
System Efficiency values corresponding to Variation in Distribution Converter System Efficiency values corresponding to Variation in Load Side Converter
Efficiency. Efficiency.

Sr. No. Distribution DC System AC System Sr. No. Load Side DC System AC System
Converter Efficiency (%) Efficiency (%) Converter Efficiency (%) Efficiency (%)
Efficiency (%) Efficiency (%)

1 90 86.51 88.50 1 85 84.05 90.29

2 91 87.47 89.49 2 88 86.28 91.28
3 92 88.44 90.47 3 90 87.74 91.93
4 93 89.40 91.46 4 92 89.19 92.52
5 94 90.36 92.44 5 94 90.62 93.13
6 95 91.33 93.42 6 95 91.33 93.41

verter efficiencies. Here we present results for different cases of
varying the converter efficiencies. Power converters are present at
two levels in the considered system portions. Moving bottom-up,
firstly power conversion is performed by rectifiers, inverters and
DC/DC converters for interfacing the loads of different type/voltage
requirement with the line mains. One level up, the next power con-
version is performed by the distribution transformers in the AC
system and the corresponding distribution level DC/DC converters
in the DC system. We refer to the former type as load side converters
and the latter as distribution converters.
The efficiencies of AC and DC power distribution systems are
evaluated by varying the distribution converter efficiencies while
keeping the load side converter efficiencies constant; and then the
vice versa. Table 2 presents efficiency results for both AC and DC
power distribution schemes where the distribution converter effi-
ciency is varied and the load side converter efficiency is fixed at
95%.
Similarly, Table 3 presents the results of system efficiency for
load side converter efficiency variation while keeping the distri-
bution converter efficiency constant. The combined results serve
to show the dependence of system efficiencies upon the efficiency
values of distribution and load side converters as well as to present
a comparison of AC and DC distribution paradigms for various cases
Despite not having much of a difference, these results show a slightly superior
performance for the AC distribution.
of efficiency analysis. The results are presented in graphical form
in Fig. 2.
system. Based upon these results, it may be said that a fair com-
parison of AC and DC distribution using the same conductor, voltage
level and converter efficiencies; has revealed that AC system is
superior to DC. Further extrapolating the conclusion, it may be said
that if the installation cost of the DC system is also substantially
higher than that of AC, then DC power distribution may be deemed
unjustified for the presented case scenario.
5. Increase in DC power demand via use of variable speed
drives
In the earlier presented results, we have assumed the build-
ing loads of space heating and cooling as ‘I’ and ‘A’ category loads
respectively. This may be regarded as the classical approach to
building temperature control. The modern concepts are to use vari-
able speed drive (VSD) based air conditioners with cooling as well
as heating options. VSD air conditioning systems can reduce the
amount of losses as compared to traditional fixed-speed systems,
and can thus allow higher efficiencies [31–34]. In the present AC
652 F. Dastgeer, H.E. Gelani / Energy and Buildings 138 (2017) 648–654

Table 4
System Efficiency values corresponding to Variation in Distribution Converter
Efficiency.

Sr. No. Distribution DC System AC System

Converter Efficiency (%) Efficiency (%)
Efficiency (%)

1 90 86.13 85.76
2 91 87.09 86.73
3 92 88.04 87.67
4 93 89.00 88.62
5 94 89.96 89.57
6 95 90.92 90.53

Fig. 2. DC & AC System Efficiency Variations.
distribution systems, the VSD air conditioners convert the input
AC power to DC and this is then inverted to AC with variable
frequency to achieve variable speed of compressor motor. Fig. 3
shows schematic diagram of such a building block. The three-phase
transformer receives power from the 11 kV AC feeder; the volt-
age is stepped down to 230 V (single phase) and supplied to the
residential buildings. The ‘A’ and ‘I’ category loads are directly con-
nected to the in-building AC distribution. However, the ‘D’ category
requires one stage of power electronic conversion, while the VSD
loads require two stages i.e. AC to DC rectification and then DC to
variable-frequency AC inversion. If DC power is readily available at a
suitable voltage, then the VSD air conditioning can avoid the AC/DC
power conversion losses which can naturally lead to higher system
efficiency. Taking the space heating and cooling as VSD based air
conditioning dramatically increases the DC power demand on the
distribution side as these two are relatively large power demand
values according to Table 1.
The system efficiency evaluations are re-performed with the
new ADI categorization having space heating and cooling as ‘D’ type
loads. The results are presented in tabular and graphical forms in
Tables 4, 5 and Fig. 4. The load side converter i.e. the converter
attached with a load for the purpose of voltage level adjustment
and/or inter-conversion of DC and AC has efficiency variation from
85 to 95%. This range is taken wider than the distribution con-
verter whose efficiency variation is assumed in a narrower range of
90–95%. The reason being the larger efficiency values for the higher
power distribution converter. The AC system shows a significantly
larger variation of system efficiency with the variation in load side
converter efficiency for the VSD case (around 9%) as compared to
the earlier case of non-VSD air-conditioning (around 3%). This may
be attributed to the addition of dual load side conversion (AC/DC
then DC/AC for the VSD loads). For the DC system, it is assumed
that the VSD loads are directly compatible with the available DC
voltage and thus do not require a DC/DC pre-converter. This time
the DC system does show higher efficiency values as compared to
AC, although the improvement is not huge.

Fig. 3. Conceptual Diagram of AC Distribution with VSD air-conditioning.

 F. Dastgeer, H.E. Gelani / Energy and Buildings 138 (2017) 648–654 653

Table 5 Table 6
System Efficiency values corresponding to Variation in Load Side Converter DC Distribution System (VSD case) Power Loss Splits.
Efficiency.
Quantity Value
Sr. No. Load Side DC System AC System
1 Total power delivered to loads 78.83 kW
Converter Efficiency (%) Efficiency (%)
2 Total power input from source 90.66 kW
Efficiency (%)
3 System Efficiency 86.95%
1 85 82.91 81.35 4 PLoss in conductors 0.195 kW
2 88 85.34 84.20 5 Ploss in primary distribution converters 4.52 kW
3 90 86.95 86.04 6 Ploss in load side inverters 2 kW
4 92 88.55 87.86 7 Ploss in DC/DC VSD loads 2.49 kw
5 94 90.13 89.64 8 converters Remaining D cat. Loads 2.63 kW
6 95 90.92 90.53

Table 7
AC Distribution System (VSD case) Power Loss Splits.

Quantity Value

1 Total power delivered to loads 78.83 kW

2 Total power input from source 91.63 kW
3 System Efficiency 86.05%
4 PLoss in conductors 0.15 kW
5 Ploss in Three Phase Transformers 4.57 kW
6 Ploss in load side rectifiers 2.48 kW
7 Ploss in AC/DC/AC conversion (for VSD loads) 5.54 kW

ness we have compared the two systems at equal efficiency values

of their respective distribution transformers, however, in general,
the AC transformer shows higher efficiency values as compared to
the DC/DC power electronic converters, and this fact is supportive
of the AC distribution paradigm. The next section presents an in-
depth analysis of the losses occurring for a particular case in the
two systems

6. The power loss splits

Fig. 4. DC & AC System Efficiency Variations.

The use of VSD drives has increased the DC load demand and the
corresponding efficiency has become slightly higher than that of the
AC system. One may say that, apparently, the increase in DC load is
an indication for the requirement of DC power distribution. How-
ever, this is not the case; as compared to the scenario of section IV,
over here the DC load has been almost doubled, still the efficiency
gain of the DC system over AC is generally around 1%. In fact, the DC
system efficiency has actually gone down as compared to the ear-
lier non-VSD case, because a large chunk of energy now has to pass
through one stage (DC/DC) of power conversion. The comparative
efficiency of DC is better than AC, because for the latter system this
chunk of energy has to pass through two power conversion stages
(AC/DC/AC). Thus, the straight forward notion that the increase of
DC loads in buildings in the form of household electronics, variable
speed air-conditioners and even lighting naturally demand a shift
towards DC power distribution may not be very correct.
However, DC can show better system efficiencies if the topolo-
gies/conditions are varied. For example, if the 380 V is opted as the
standard for DC, this will naturally lead to a higher system effi-
ciency as compared to the 230 V AC. Also, if local DC generation
(say from photovoltaics) is assumed to be present in the system,
again DC can show better performance because this portion of the
power will not have to pass through a DC/AC inversion process thus
avoiding the loss here. Furthermore, if the building wiring is mod-
ified to supply multiple DC voltage levels so that lower efficiency
voltage reducing converters in various electronics may be avoided,
this would also add to the advantage of DC. But again, as the point
of fairness of comparison is stressed upon, it has to be said that the
comparison needs to be on equal grounds. For instance, if the volt-
age level of AC system is allowed to increase, then the AC system
will also be able to show higher efficiency. Also, for the sake of fair-
Tables 6 and 7 show details of the various system losses for one
of the cases (Case 3 of Table 5) of comparative simulation analyses.
The total useful power consumed by the loads (78.83 kW) is the
same for both cases. The DC system has a higher overall system effi-
ciency than the AC system, still its conductor loss is more than that
of the AC system. This is apparently because where DC uses two
wires, AC uses three wires to transfer the same power. DC system
saves energy from the VSD load category by avoiding one stage
of power conversion; although, this does require the assumption
that the DC voltage supplied will be compatible for the VSD air-
conditioning units. The overall gain of the DC system is not huge
because the remaining D category loads requiring a DC/DC con-
version add about 2.62 kW power loss offsetting the gain obtained
by the use of VSD loads. Consequently, the DC system manages to
show only minor increase in efficiency.
7. Conclusion and future work
This paper has attempted to present a comparative efficiency
study of AC and DC residential power distribution systems. The DC
power transfer, although, given up a long time ago; is witnessing
a comeback in the system and for the particular case of residential
power distribution, its efficiency was found comparable to that of
AC. However, if AC power has to be given up in favor of DC, then DC
should not only match the feasibility of AC, it should exceed this so
as to provide a strong reasoning for making this huge change in the
power system. At the present, this doesn’t appear to be the case as
far as system efficiency is concerned. Even the increase of DC power
demand in buildings via the use of VSD air-conditioning was found
to make a small contribution to the overall system performance.
From the point of view of efficiency, an increase in demand of DC
power may not be a justification/suggestion for opting DC power
654 F. Dastgeer, H.E. Gelani / Energy and Buildings 138 (2017) 648–654
distribution as long as energy has to flow through power electronic
converters.
For a further research in the direction of this work, the ‘Other’
category in the Residential Energy splits Table 1 which was equally
divided between A, D and I categories may be investigated more to
have a better understanding of this load segment to come up with
an improved ADI division of this category. Similarly, the lighting
loads are assumed to directly work with the DC system. A supple-
mentary study may be performed where these loads are assumed
to be partly DC and partly AC. Furthermore, statistical analyses and
calculations may be performed in order to have a deeper insight
into the results of comparative efficiency study of DC and AC sys-
tems. Such statistical investigation may also serve to alleviate any
random variations in the results. Also, the data of Fig. 2 may be used
to derive a general relationship between the system efficiency and
constituent converter efficiency values. Such a relationship may be
verified by taking a larger range of constituent converter efficien-
cies. It can then be compared to the corresponding relationship
obtained for the case of VSD loads in order to have a mathematical
insight into the comparative study. Moreover, a hardware based
prototype testing for the DC and AC systems could also serve to
alleviate any uncertainties in the current study. Yet another direc-
tion would be to extend this work for commercial buildings. DC has
come to par with AC systems, but the choice of opting for DC will
also depend on factors such as installation cost and life cycle cost
of the system. Such a comparative economic comparison may also
be performed in future. DC has set foot in three of the four parts of
the power system, but apparently, it will face a strong contest for
gaining the residential distribution part of the system.
Funding
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding
agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in
the online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2016.12.
077.
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