IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019 - 8

President's Message

by Frede Blaabjerg

Working for a Better Planet

A

s a Society president, I have
the honor of visiting many
countries and engaging in
discussions with many people from
different organizations. One clear
trend I am seeing is that the global
agreement on the United Nations
(UN) 17 Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs) for a better planet is
quickly moving forward, with many
initiatives on a large scale. Many of
the goals are only achievable by electrification-and that translates into a
lot of power electronic solutions-
which means the IEEE Power Electronics Society (PELS) is instrumental
in providing these technology solutions to the world.
One very important goal is to
bring electricity to billions of people living in remote regions of the
world who have no access to it. Here,
PELS is playing an important role
through the leadership of Prof. Deepak Divan from the Georgia Institute
of Technology, Atlanta. For the past
two years, Prof. Divan has been running a global competition called IEEE
Empower a Billion Lives (EBL), which
fosters new and innovative solutions
to provide electricity in an economically sustainable way to areas with
no electricity. In addition, the best
solutions should further be demonstrated in the field to validate the
readiness of the proposed solutions.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPEL.2019.2947102
Date of current version: 17 December 2019

8

IEEE POWER ELECTRONICS MAGAZINE

I attended EPE '19 ECCE Europe in
The EBL began with more than 450
Genova, Italy, and, in October, ECCE
teams from 70 countries competing in
2019 in Baltimore, Maryland, with
five regions: China, India, South Africa,
1,000 and 1,800 delegates, respectively.
Spain, and the United States. Out of
After looking at their programs, I can
that, 23 teams from around the world
see that the current research activities
were selected to compete in the final
are very broad, with continuous imround at the IEEE Energy Conversion
provements in power
Congress a n d E x electronics technolp o s i t i o n (ECCE)
ogy. One area is, of
2019 in Balt i mor e ,
Prof. Divan has been
course, wide-bandMaryland. The winrunning a global
gap (WBG) devices,
ning team was from
competition called
which offer much
the Indian Institute
IEEE Empower a
lower losses when
of Tech nolog y i n
Billion Lives, which
performing power
Mumbai and presentfosters new and
conversion. Anothed an excellent proer area is transportaposal. I have to say,
innovative solutions
tion electrification,
the amount of interto provide electricity
which moves at a
est around the world
in an economically
very rapid pace, and
for this initiative is
sustainable way
a third area could be
tremendous. And beto areas with
renewable generation
cause of the interest
no electricity.
and its impact on the
it has generated in
grid system, where,
finding a sustainable
e.g., new analysis
low-cost solution for
methods are needed to map uncerenergy access, EBL should continue for
tainties. With respect to WBG devices,
years to come, perhaps in collaboration
our Society presented a road map at
with other organizations to acquire
ECCE in Baltimore, which is available
more funding and generate even better
to all of our members. For that, Prof.
solutions to reach the remotest areas of
Peter Wilson from the University of
the world. I'd like to thank Prof. Divan
Bath, United Kingdom, and Prof. Braand all the teams that have worked with
ham Ferreira from the University of
him to make this great effort a success.
Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands,
Also, I would like to thank all sponsors
have played a key roles. Many thanks
who have contributed to the activities
to them and all contributors to the
around the world and the final awards
WBG technology roadmap. PELS
presented at ECCE.
members can download the report
Many of the UN's other SDGs also
from the PELS website Resource
need power electronics. In September,

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