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New Energy World™
New Energy World™ embraces the whole energy industry as it connects and converges to address the decarbonisation challenge. It covers progress being made across the industry, from the dynamics under way to reduce emissions in oil and gas, through improvements to the efficiency of energy conversion and use, to cutting-edge initiatives in renewable and low-carbon technologies.
How a new generation of power electronics will sit at the heart of the energy transition
29/1/2025
10 min read
Feature
Power grids and electrical consumer needs are changing radically. Dr Katie Hore, Innovation Director at power electronics R&D consortium REWIRE, explains how UK researchers are developing a new generation of semiconductors that will be key to boosting device performance in the energy transition, with higher voltages and improved energy efficiency.
In the energy sector, engineers and designers play a crucial role in making green technologies cheaper and more attractive to consumers. With the UK government legally committed to reaching net zero by 2050, efficiency improvements in the energy sector will need to go hand-in-hand with transformative changes to the consumer’s experience.
For example, imagine charging an electric car battery to 80% of its capacity in five minutes – not much longer than it takes to fill a petrol tank. Much of the range anxiety of a long journey would disappear, along with many of the issues with kerbside charging. This would clearly make electric vehicles (EVs) much more attractive to consumers. Achieving five-minute car charging will require the development of new technology not just for batteries but also chargers. In the UK, to achieve net zero in electricity production will require increased use of renewable sources such as offshore wind farms. Using high voltage DC (HVDC) transmission from turbine arrays to shore would reduce both transmission losses and capital costs. But to use HVDC, the power needs to be stepped up and rectified at the offshore end, and subsequently converted to AC for input into the National Grid.
Current power semiconductor electronics cannot easily perform these transformations at the voltage and current ratings required. Grid voltages must then be stepped down to be distributed throughout neighbourhoods and then our homes. For electric vehicle charging and similar applications, there is at least one more stage with a rectifier to convert AC back to DC, and then further losses in the electronics which regulate battery power output.