IEEE Power Electronics Magazine Compendium - March 2018 - 9

Forward Looking Letter

by Frede Blaabjerg

Driving Power Electronics
into the Future-Quo Vadis

his year, the IEEE Power
Electronics Society (PELS)
celebrates its 30th anniversary. Just as three decades is a long
time in human life, it is also a long
time for modern power electronics
technology. What progress and what
an impact! Concepts and applications we could only imagine 30
years ago and even before have
now, in many cases, been implemented in today's society. Hundreds
of gigawatts of solar and wind
power have been installed, e.g., and
adjustable-speed drives are a commodity in all heating, ventilation,
and air-conditioning applications,
with huge energy savings. Similarly,
small portable electronics are everywhere. Other important applications
are the electrification of the transportation sector and widespread
industrialization.
But quo vadis? Are we there, or is
there more to do for all of us in the field?
Prediction, especially about the future,
is difficult. I will say we are not there
and there is a lot more to do. There is a
need for new and innovative solutions
for electrification of the world.

Devices and Components
Power devices/components have been
a driving force for a large part of
power electronics technology development. As components get better,
cheaper and more compact designs
are being realized. Consequently,
wide-bandgap technology (gallium

nitride and silicon carbide) promises
to revolutionize power electronic systems in the future at low, medium, and
very high power levels. Much higher
switching frequencies and much higher voltages with lower losses will give
higher power densities, smaller footprint requirements, better control performance, and so on. However, there
will be big challenges with respect to
packaging and protection as well as
electromagnetic interference/electromagnetic compatibility.
Future designs will have to change
radically. Interestingly, these changes
will happen because of the availability
of much better simulation tools, which
can handle multiple fields like magnetics, electrical, thermal, and structural
parts. Cost is an issue today. Large
volume/large scale will change this figure of merit, driving it toward a much
better number. Even better materials
for power devices are in the pipeline.
When combined with packaging technology, these better materials will enable modular power stacks, thereby
easing the implementation of multilevel topologies. Last but not the least are
the magnetics and capacitors, where
there is still room for improvement,
further challenged by the new power
devices. They may be more solid-state
based in the future.

Power Generation
The modern world is seeking solutions to become more sustainable in
terms of power generation. One of the

solutions is to implement renewable
generation in the electrical power system. Wind turbine technology has
been the fastest-growing technology,
followed closely by photovoltaic (PV)
systems (Figure 1). With steady
growth for decades, the installed wind
power reached 500 GW capacity in
2017. This increase in capacity, together with the upscaling of single wind
turbine power capability (e.g., the
8-10 MW offered by manufacturers
may increase to 15 MW in the future),
has pushed the research and development of all aspects of wind power
engineering.
As more and more power electronic
converters are used, there is a greater
effort to lower cost per kilowatt and
kilowatt hour. Toward that goal, higher power density and lower weights
are needed. To reduce operation and
maintenance costs, there is a constant
need for higher reliability for all system components. Substantial work is
being carried out in the wind turbine
technology area to comply with more
stringent grid codes, especially grid
fault ride through and reactive power
injection, which challenge the power
converter topologies and wind turbine
components during operation.
A serious competitor to wind is PV.
The cost of panels is dropping so fast
that the cost of PV energy may soon
beat any fossil-based generation system. This will make PV a standard
component everywhere, helping houses become more or less self-sufficient.
IEEE PowEr ElEctronIcs MagazInE

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power Electronics Magazine Compendium - March 2018