4-6 May 2010
Exhibition Centre, Nuremberg
Preview I PCIM
parts. One will look at the particulars for wind generation and one will deal with the different topologies for connecting renewable energy sources to the grid. The other two will focus on photo voltaics, both off and on grid. “It will give an overview of the
state of the art on photo voltaics,” said Meinhardt. “They will learn about power electronics and control. It will give an insight to understand these inverters, how they work, how they are controlled, how we manufacture them.” He said there were a lot of drive manufacturers who were looking at entering the renewable energy market and that they would be the main beneficiaries from this “It is a growing market and they
He said that whereas this was
being done with traditional silicon, the extra one per cent efficiency in each inverter through using GaN made it more worthwhile. “We took the GaN product and
applied it to the different topologies,” he said. “We have proved GaN can improve efficiency. It can also improve efficiency for those still using a central converter.” He said that whereas SiC could
also improve efficiency, it was far more expensive than GaN and he said that over time GaN would be comparable in cost to silicon. “A few years down the road, it will
be pretty level for cost per function,” he said. “Today there is a premium with GaN but people will pay the difference for some applications to get the extra efficiency.”
He also said he believed this type
of technology was flexible enough to address both domestic and commercial applications but he believed the utility firms would stay with traditional technology for a lot longer. “But for 7 to 50kW systems, the importance of the increased energy harvesting that this approach delivers is definitely worthwhile,” he said.
The art of photo voltaics
For those who want to know more about the whole scope of power electronics for renewable energy, Mike Meinhardt, head of knowledge management at SMA Solar Technology, with two colleagues will be running a tutorial on the subject. The tutorial will be split into four
want their engineers to gain knowledge of these topics,” he said. “There are also manufacturers with new employees and this is a good opportunity for them to learn very quickly.” This, he said, was one of the
fastest growing markets in power electronics with the photo voltaic sector increasing by 20 per cent a year and predictions that this growth will last for at least 20 years. The wind sector is a little less but still growing. The main task though over
coming years will be to reduce the cost as solar energy is still an expensive way to produce electricity. Though prices were falling at between 10 and 20 per cent a year, cost reduction was still the main issue. And wind energy as well had a similar problem but not as bad. “Wind energy is about twice the price of coal energy,” he said, “but
Mike Meinhardt: “Wind energy is about twice the price of coal energy but producing electricity using photo voltaics is six times the price.”
producing electricity using photo voltaics is six times the price.” However, as prices are starting to
fall this will increase the take up and thus allow further reductions in prices, thus following the normal economic pattern. This is why now more drive manufacturers are looking to enter the market, why tutorials such as this are important and why reconciling the differences between the technologies will be a key goal for the speakers and delegates. This conference thus has the potential to be a watershed.
www.cieonline.co.uk
Components in Electronics
April 2010 11
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