Feature: Power
In the quest for reduced energy consumption, from harvesting energy to the grid, the power electronics industry is permanently seeking new ways to improve efficiency
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technology and design trends shaping the power electronics industry
By Patrick Le Fèvre, Chief Marketing Officer, PRBX
L
ike everything else in the world, power electronics has been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic; however, there’s also been a boost in new technologies and opportunities for power designers over the past two years. And, as the Applied Power Electronics Conference (APEC), which took place
in Houston (the US) in March this year, would attest, power supplies are becoming more efficient, more reliable and rather exciting to design with. Electrification and transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy is currently a major trend. The automotive and
22 July/August 2022
www.electronicsworld.co.uk
renewable-energy sectors will require many technological innovations to reach the carbon-neutral level expected by the European Commission, US DOE and similar initiatives in Asia. If we refocus on what most of the power supply companies are developing, we can identify four main trends and one technological development that will influence the power industry in 2022: 1. Reducing energy consumption; 2. Power supplies becoming part of the machine-to-machine (M2M) ecosystem; 3. Enhanced energy storage solutions; and 4. Acceleration of energy-harvesting solutions – all of which will benefit from the implementation of wide band-gap (WBG) semiconductors. In the quest for reduced energy consumption, from
harvesting energy to the grid, the power electronics industry is permanently seeking new ways to improve efficiency. International and local regulations have forced power supply manufacturers to innovate, but we are seeing more stringent regulations on its way that might require the power industry to explore new topologies, components and materials.
E-commerce One application that will benefit from these trends is e-commerce, which had already been growing well before the pandemic. However, as a consequence of lockdowns, working from home and the drastic reduction in physical interaction, e-commerce has grown exponentially, placing a high demand on shipping hubs, computerised storage and the overall supply chain. Before we even mention the associated data centres required
to manage the e-commerce process, shipping hubs and warehouses have become gigantic, consuming vast amounts of energy. Making these hubs more energy efficient has been of key importance to all the major players, although the 2020-2021 demand peaks sent a strong a signal to reconsider the ways energy is used and managed. Power supplies are not consuming most of the energy, but considering their strategic position in the operational chain, they become crucial in the overall process of energy use optimisation. In 2022 we will see very advanced power supplies used
in e-commerce handling and shipping hubs. They will not only integrate higher levels of communication, but will store and use energy from supercapacitor banks, reducing power
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