The Future of Energy Savings Draws on Power Electronics (Text Version)

This is the text version of the video The Future of Energy Savings Draws on Power Electronics.

[Music starts with aerial view of National Renewable Energy Laboratory campus]

>>Barry Mather: As we transition a grid to higher and higher levels of renewable energy, power electronics actually is the control point in all of those systems. It’s the glue that holds the clean energy future together.

[Shots of different research lab spaces]

[Text on screen:  NREL is dedicated to advancing power electronics and control systems that enable seamless integration of renewable energy resources and microgrids with the grid while meeting stringent operational requirements.]

>>Akanksha Singh: These power electronic converters are the building blocks that we need to make these systems more and more efficient, resilient, grid friendly, more and more application friendly.

>>Brooks Tellekamp: As a lab, I think we're very interested in understanding and controlling every step along the way of an electron's life. Materials that push the boundaries of what is possible for a power electronic material. What is the most extreme property we can achieve while still being able to control conductivity? How does it react to different internal or external stimuli, like high temperature, high pressure, or chemicals? And then can it be made into devices that do something useful?

>>Sreekant Narumanchi: We are in the business of design, development, evaluation, commercialization of these next-generation power electronic components and electric machine components. And then we are trying to understand the failure modes and mechanisms by subjecting these to those accelerated conditions because we don't have the luxury of waiting 15–30 years to find out how these components perform.

[Shots of power electronic components]

>>Barry Mather: NREL’s role in power electronics development really is to support industry primarily and demonstrate how power electronics can be a major part of the clean energy solution.

>>Akanksha Singh: We need partnerships from universities where we can get concept development, where they have not scaled it up or they don't have infrastructure to do the full proof of concept. Then you need national labs, which can develop even more advanced version of those things. And then you need Industries who can pick it up from there and commercialize it and use it in actual applications. All these levels of partnerships are really essential to develop something from scratch and take it to the market.

>>Barry Mather: We want to put together the process right—or, the ability for NREL to interface with power electronic technology development companies with industry at all these different levels, from very low technology readiness levels, where it's really simply an idea, all the way up to full-scale application. And that's really the exciting thing that we're putting together here across the power electronic space at NREL.

[Animated NREL logo with the words “Visit Power Electronics for more information.”]

[Music stops]