June/July 2021

CONTENTS www.power-mag.com Issue 3 2021 Power Electronics Europe 3 Editor Achim Scharf Tel: +49 (0)892865 9794 Fax: +49 (0)892800 132 Email: PowerElectronicsEurope@t-online.de Production Editor Chris Davis Tel: +44 (0)1732 370340 Financial Manager Caren Brown Tel: +44 (0)1732 370340 Fax: +44 (0)1732 360034 Email: caren.brown@dfamedia.co.uk Reader/Circulation Enquiries Perception Tel: +44 (0) 1825 701520 Email: dfamedia@dmags.co.uk INTERNATIONAL SALES OFFICES Mainland Europe: Victoria Hufmann Norbert Hufmann Tel: +49 911 9397 643 Fax: +49 911 9397 6459 Email: pee@hufmann.info Eastern US Ian Atkinson Tel: +44 (0)1732 370340 Fax: +44 (0)1732 360034 Email: ian@dfamedia.co.uk Western US and Canada Ian Atkinson Tel: +44 (0)1732 370340 Fax: +44 (0)1732 360034 Email: ian@dfamedia.co.uk Japan: Yoshinori Ikeda, Pacific Business Inc Tel: 81-(0)3-3661-6138 Fax: 81-(0)3-3661-6139 Email: pbi2010@gol.com Taiwan Prisco Ind. Service Corp. Tel: 886 2 2322 5266 Fax: 886 2 2322 2205 Publisher & UK Sales Ian Atkinson Tel: +44 (0)1732 370340 Fax: +44 (0)1732 360034 Email: ian@dfamedia.co.uk www.power-mag.com Circulation and subscription: Power Electronics Europe is available for the following subscription charges. Power Electronics Europe : annual charge UK/NI £95, overseas $160, EUR 150. Contact: DFA Media, 192 The High Street, Tonbridge, Kent TN9 1BE Great Britain. Tel: +44 (0)1732 370340 . Fax: +44 (0)1732 360034 . Refunds on cancelled subscriptions will only be provided at the Publisher’s discretion, unless specifically guaranteed within the terms of subscription offer. Editorial information should be sent to The Editor, Power Electronics Europe , PO Box 340131, 80098 Munich, Germany. The contents of Power Electronics Europe are subject to reproduction in information storage and retrieval systems. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without the express prior written consent of the publisher. Printed by: Warners. ISSN 1748-3530 PAGE 6 Market News PEE looks at the latest Market News and company developments PAGE 10 Industry News PAGE 12 PCIM 2021 PAGE 25 APEC 2021 Benefits of CoolSiC MOSFETs in Bi- Directional Inverter Applications With the move to renewable energy, there is an increased focus not only on generation but also storage, to make the most of the intermittent supply from wind and solar. Batteries are the common solution and costs are dropping, driven by the technology improvements stemming from the EV market. This opens up opportunities for energy storage at any scale, from domestic to utility. As the supply paradigm shifts towards renewables, traditional generation from carbon-based fuels reduces, but also interacts to its advantage by using distributed storage to feed AC back into the grid through inverters for ‘peak-shaving’, to make generation more cost effective and reliable. To achieve this, batteries need to be able to charge from a cheap or convenient energy source and then discharge to a local load or back into the utility grid as ‘feed in’. AC/DC chargers and DC/AC inverters are established products, but if they can be efficiently combined, then there are costs to be saved. As a result, there is intense interest in ‘bi-directional converters’, with the volume market set to be in households with a local renewable energy source and storage, which may be an EV battery. SiC MOSFETs are a natural evolution from Si superjunction MOSFETs for applications at medium to high power with high switching frequency. Here there are significant efficiency gains to be had, along with a reduction in size and cost of associated components, particularly magnetics. This can result in significant end-product savings in cost, size and weight, as well as lower energy bills. In bi-directional converters, SiC devices can perform all high voltage switching functions with higher efficiency than traditional solutions and with their superior body diode characteristics, can make hard switching topologies such as the totem-pole PFC viable and cost effective. As a demonstration of the advantages of SiC MOSFETs in a bi-directional converter, Infineon has showcased a 3.3 kW totem-pole PFC stage which achieves 4.7 W/cm? power density with a peak efficiency of 99.1 % at 230 VAC input and 400 VDC output. Efficiency also peaks at over 98.8 % when operating in inverter mode, generating 230 VAC at 50 Hz. More details on page. 22. Cover image supplied by Infineon Technologies FEATURE STORY To receive your own copy of Power Electronics Europe subscribe today at: www.power-mag.com