news review
BACC & Bridgelux advance LED street lighting
THE BAY AREA CLIMATE COLLABORATIVE (BACC) and Bridgelux are collaborating to accelerate the market for advanced street lighting technologies through the Bay Area Next Generation Streetlight Initiative.
The initiative is a region-wide project to upgrade over 200,000 municipal streetlights to the next generation of LED technology.
In partnership with the nationally- recognised UC Davis California Lighting Technology Centre (CLTC), the BACC is delivering leading-edge education, tools and guidance through the Bay Area Next Generation Streetlight Initiative, to accelerate the move to next generation streetlighting.
Bridgelux’s sponsorship of the Initiative will support outreach to Bay Area
municipalities on the LED lighting opportunity, as well as the development of key resources. These include the recently published guide “Next Generation Streetlights: LED Technology and Strategies for Action,” which delivers education and specific steps for streetlight conversions.
With the ultimate goal of pooling regional interest in LED streetlight conversions to secure improved purchase and financing terms, the initiative will serve as a business model that local governments can replicate to upgrade streetlights at lower costs, relieving municipal budgets while bolstering the region’s economy.
Over five years, regional upgrades could deliver up to $50 million in reduced costs for local governments, over 100,000 metrics tons of CO2 avoidance, and many
jobs. The BACC is a public-private partnership initiative of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, launched by regional civic and business leaders in 2009 to accelerate the Bay Area clean energy economy through high-impact, market- oriented projects that can be replicated and scaled.
Transphorm changes the face of power conversion with GaN
AT THE 2013 ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit, Transphorm announced that its novel 600V GaN module has enabled the world’s first GaN-based high power converter.
Transphorm will demonstrate the High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT) products, built with its customer-partner Yaskawa Electric, Japan at the APEC 2013 industry conference. The announcement underscores the significant technical and commercial progress that Transphorm has made since being awarded ARPA-E funding in 2011 to reduce the vast amount of electric power waste globally.
Yaskawa’s product, a 4.5kW PV power conditioner, is powered by Transphorm’s 600V GaN half-bridge modules, which have enabled it to achieve several industry firsts. It is claimed to be the first high power converter product in the world utilising GaN technology and also the first efficient PV power conditioner to operate at 50KHz.
Simultaneous achievement of a 40 percent reduction in inverter size and 98 percent efficiency operation is enabled by Transphorm’s EZ-GaN module technology.
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www.compoundsemiconductor.net March 2013
Transphorm’s patented, high-performance EZ-GaN module technology, combines low switching and conduction losses offering reduced energy loss of over 50 percent compared to conventional silicon based power conversion designs while simultaneously operating at higher frequency.
“The partnership between Yaskawa, the world leader in inverter solutions, and Transphorm, the world leader in GaN- based power conversion, has produced the world’s first high power GaN power converter,” says Umesh Mishra, CEO of
Transphorm. “This is a disruptive first step which signals the broad adoption of GaN- based power conversion solutions.”
“By teaming with Transphorm, Yaskawa is again the technology leader in introducing new technologies into the market place with tremendous benefits to customers and society” adds Tatsuya Yamada, General Manager Environment & Energy Business Div. Drives Division of Yaskawa Electric.
Transphorm’s efficient, compact, and easy-to-embed solutions simplify the design and manufacturing of a wide variety of electrical systems and devices, including power supplies and adapters, PV Inverters for solar panels, motor drives and power conversion for electric vehicles.
The firm's EZ- GaN platform can reduce power system size, increase energy density and deliver high efficiencies across the grid. For customers looking for a low-risk roadmap to the next generation of power conversion technology, EZ-GaN provides a cost- effective and easy-to-use solution ready for commercial scale.
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