The IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition took place last week in Pittsburgh. The clear trends based on exhibits on the show floor included a lot of interest in SiC power devices and in alternative topologies for inverters. Here are a few of the more interesting sites we encountered there.

SiC on display

The Center for Ultra-wide-area Resilient Electric Energy Transmission Networks (CURENT)had a booth at ECCE wherein it displayed, among other things, a 7.5-kW delta-type current source rectifier. Its claim to fame is the use of SiC transistors that give it up to 20% less conduction loss than ordinary CSRs. Visible on the prototype are a DSP board (top mezzanine) over an interface board. The gate-drive board is on the bottom. The light blue rectangular objects are ac capacitors; DC capacitors are dark blue. CURENT is jointly supported by NSF and the Dept. of Energy and promotes development of a transmission grid that is fully monitored and dynamically controlled in real-time to better accommodate renewable energy sources, full utilization of energy storage, and responsive loads.