As the leading brand of standard power supplies, MEAN WELL spares no effort in the promotion of direct current (DC) centralized power supply. Last year, for the first time (2020), a smart home scenario was built in the exhibition, which embodies the concept of DC House, with high-voltage DC centralized power supply as the core, and exhibits home applications that integrate smart control of the Internet of Things (IoT).
What is even more exciting is that the Suzhou MEAN WELL Smart Park currently under construction will use DC 380V wiring to supply the power required for plant lighting and various machinery and equipment in a centralized DC manner, specifically demonstrating the feasibility and advantages of DC centralized power supply. Suzhou MEAN WELL Smart Park is expected to be completed and put into use in October next year (2022).
On the whole, compared with AC power, the advantages of DC power supply include: simplified circuit helps improve reliability, higher efficiency can reduce losses, lower overall setup costs, and easy integration of various power grids. MEAN WELL's DC House presents these advantages with actual settings.
Take the LED lighting that MEAN WELL is best at as an example. The DC House used in the exhibition uses a DC 380V DC to drive LED lamps. Lin Jiansong, product manager of MEAN WELL’s Product Strategy Center, pointed out, “Different from the AC power supply system, which requires AC-DC voltage conversion, it is complicated and generates losses. The use of DC-powered lighting saves many voltage conversion lines, so the system setup is simple and can be significant. It is estimated that about 30% of the construction cost can be saved by reducing the loss."
It is worth mentioning that many smart home lighting applications are common at present. If you want to achieve wireless dimming control, you must rely on gateway control, which not only increases equipment costs and complicates installation, but MEAN WELL Bluetooth control module function is integrated into the power supply and directly communicates with the cloud system, making the LED lighting easier to use and more intelligent.
In addition, MEAN WELL provides a variety of lighting dimming control systems, from the earliest 0~10V voltage dimming, resistance dimming, 10V PWM signal dimming, smart timing dimming, to the latest DALI-2 digital dimming, KNX dimming Light, Bluetooth dimming, etc., MEAN WELL has corresponding products and solutions.
Use a single power supply to meet the needs of the whole house
Not only lighting applications, but in the vision of DC centralized power supply described by MEAN WELL, indoor or outdoor applications related to households, such as home appliances and electric vehicle charging, will also develop in the direction of DC power supply.
In MEAN WELL’s DC House, only one power supply with 1500W or 7500W watts is needed, and the voltage is converted to 380V DC at a time, and all household lighting or household appliances can be supplied with DC centralized power supply. It is estimated to be about 30% of the construction cost can be saved, and various electrical appliances and devices use the same voltage source and electrical connector, which can save various voltage conversion losses. If you need to combine future electric vehicle charging or energy storage needs, you can choose MEAN WELL's larger watt power supply products to match.
The benefits of DC centralized power supply, in addition to the aforementioned benefits of reducing voltage conversion losses, improving ease of use, and uniform use of specifications, safety is also an important consideration. Basically, DC power is easier to integrate than AC power in parallel, which is more suitable for energy storage systems and electric vehicle charging applications.
