IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - September 2017 - 29

FIG 1 Attendees at the FEPPCON IX workshop in Kruger Park, South Africa. (Photo courtesy of IEEE PELS.)

advanced significantly. Today, it dominates in renewable
power generation, industrialization, and appliances. It is
also thriving in electrical transportation, including the
surrounding infrastructure.
The theme of FEPPCON IX was "Technological Opportunities and Obstacles for Applications of Power Electronics in Generation, Storage, Transmission, Distribution, and
Efficient Consumption of Electric Energy." There were 48
participants from all over the world, with leading experts
from industry and academia. The participants were given
the following three objectives:
1) understand the electromagnetic, reliability, topology,
thermal, and control limitations applicable to electronic
power conversion
2) identify future key research and development tracks and
the possible roadblocks in power electronics technology,
particularly with regards to electronic power systems
3) identify possible opportunities for disruptive technology
research in materials, components, equipment, and systems.
The FEPPCON IX program offered six plenary sessions;
the technical discussion on each topic included a few short
positioning presentations to provide focus and pose provocatively open and critical questions, followed by an hour
of discussion. The final day of the workshop included a
wrap-up session during which conclusions were presented.
Each session had a chair and a notetaker to record the conclusions. The six main technical sessions are described in
the following sections.

Power System Infrastructure and
Electronic Transmission and Distribution
The Power System Infrastructure and Electronic Transmission and Distribution session was chaired by Prof.

Deepak Divan of Georgia Tech, with notetaker Prof. Jian
Sun of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Electric power is
evolving toward power electronics-based systems in which
most generation will be renewable (Figure 2). Photovoltaic (PV)-based power generation seems increasingly
competitive with conventional fossil fuel. Today, PV
power (now as low as US$0.025/kWh) offers a complete
new paradigm for power development. Future distributed
generation systems demand resilient, robust, adaptive,
and flexible characteristics (security, reliability, and cost
are key issues). The infrastructure requires billions of
low-cost intelligent devices with fast actuation to control
the grid. In addition, they must offer communication capabilities, combined with a fail-normal operation-controlled
grid system, which is essential for implementation in
existing grids. The projected price for power converters in
2020 is US$3/kVA.

BESS
HVDC

PHSS

FIG 2 Rapid development in wind and solar-power generation
will make renewables competitive with fossil fuel in the near
future. BESS: battery energy storage systems; PHSS: pump
hydro storage systems. (Diagram courtesy of Rik DeDoncker.)

September 2017

z IEEE POWER ELECTRONICS MAGAZINE

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - September 2017