Fraunhofer Institute for Silicon TechnologyThe challenge
Electrification of society is reaching mission critical applications. However, power electronics devices are prone to failure, and high availability is usually ensured using redundancy - which is expensive and bulky. In the meantime, power electronics allows hybrid (AC & DC) electric distribution, which is key to integration of solar power and use of hydrogen as energy carrier. Multi-source integration, including renewable generators and energy storage, is furthermore required to ensure continuity of operation, whilst compensating the limited dynamics of power sources like fuel cells and filtering out disturbances carried by the network.
Our solution
With Super-HEART, Fraunhofer ISIT and CAU Kiel target the development of a high availability power converter for multi-source integration, for applications that are critical and have high downtime-costs. Together with academic partners, we have gained extensive experience in the development of multiport isolated DCDC power converters (>20 kW), with an emphasis on high availability and fault-tolerance. For high efficiency and power density, we use SiC, GaN or planar transformers, and custom high performance super-capacitors.
