Electric motors: state of flux?
…lower material usage may also yield important cost-savings. Power electronics are overlooked in the revolution of electrifying transport. We note the importance of Moore’s Law on page 12, in the…
Solid state batteries: will they change the world?
…covering electric vehicles, consumer electronics, heavy trucks, aviation, drones, other futuristic sci-fi concepts (!) and oil markets. Technical challenges remain. Pages 12-14 outline our “top five issues”, based on reviewing…
Solar: energy payback and embedded energy?
…40% by embedded energy. Another 10kg of material is contained in the balance of project, across inverters, wiring, structural supports, other electronics. Thus the energy embedded in manufacturing the panel…
Windy physics: how is power of a wind turbine calculated?
…energy. If this energy is going to be harnessed for useful work, then there may also be small additional losses for important power electronics, transformers and power transmission. What determines…
Carbon leakage: China versus the West, 1999-2019
…GDP is up c50% in the West and up 5.5x in China. The greatest leakage has likely occurred for cars, electronics and machinery. Although other sectors such as solar panels…
Offshore wind: installation vessels and time per turbine?
…turbines. The other large bottleneck is in downstream power electronics for integrating wind with power grids. Leading companies in offshore wind turbine installation vessels include DEME, MPI, Van Oord, Cadeler,…
Goldwind: frequency response from wind turbines?
…the solutions are software-side, which will lower their implementation cost, and not pull too hard on already-bottlenecked power electronics. However, as usual, we find it harder to de-risk algorithm-heavy patents….
Green hydrogen: alkaline versus PEM electrolysers?
…(40,000 hours versus 90,000 hours, as general rules of thumb). This is primarily because the membranes are fragile. And H+ ions are, by definition, acidic. But as with all power-electronics,…
Energy storage: top conclusions into batteries?
…lithium ion batteries are 75-95% efficient. The technology is only getting better, including via power electronics and electric motors. So this is a game changer for light transportation, which becomes…
Hillcrest: ZVS inverter breakthrough?
…with next-generation SiC semiconductor, which are creating an exciting jolt forwards in the power electronics behind practically all of the core areas of the energy transition (TSE research note here)….