How can power electronics help the energy sector achieve the goal of "two-carbon"

Under the "double carbon" goal, the new energy system has accelerated the pace of planning and construction. As an important part of the new energy system, the new power system is a key carrier to help the energy transformation and achieve the goal of "double carbon".

In 2023, China's installed capacity of non-fossil energy power generation historically exceeded that of fossil energy power generation. According to the China Electricity Council's Analysis and Forecast Report on the National Power supply and demand Situation in the first half of 2023, as of the end of June, the cumulative installed capacity of non-fossil energy in the country accounted for 51.5%. With the increasing proportion of non-fossil energy in total power generation and total consumption, it is becoming urgent to build a new power system.

"In the next 20 to 30 years, we will see a lot of renewable energy entering the grid, becoming a distributed micro-grid, and integrating into a large grid system." There will be a lot of power electronics that will play an important role in the smart grid." Li Zeyuan, a foreign academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and director of the "Delta Power Electronics Science and Education Development Program" and the "Zhongda Scholars Program," said.

Technology helps energy conservation and carbon reduction

"Power electronics" is not a very daily word, but it has been widely used in all aspects of production and life. In order to make this technology more intuitive to understand, Li Zeyuan gave a simple example, any concept of "switch", if its purpose is not to process signals, but to deal with the transformation and transmission of energy, involves the application of power electronics technology.

This means that as small as our daily use of mobile phone chargers, frequency conversion air conditioners, large to travel in electric vehicles, high-speed rail, industrial power devices and clean energy grid connection, etc., are inseparable from power electronics technology. Therefore, the efficiency and quality of power electronic technology in energy conversion directly affects the energy saving and carbon reduction effect of many industries and fields.

Delta Group (hereinafter referred to as "Delta"), which has worked with Li Zeyuan for more than 30 years, is deeply influenced by Zheng Chonghua, its founder and honorary chairman. "Thirty years ago, people may not pay much attention to the problem of power loss, Mr. Zheng noticed, and passed the concept of energy conservation and environmental protection to every engineer in the company."

Under the strong promotion of Zheng Chonghua (left), founder and honorary Chairman of Delta, and Li Zeyuan (right), foreign academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, Delta's "Science and Education Two Programs" have been successfully implemented for more than 20 years.

Delta was founded in 1971, relying on the core technology of power electronics, started from the power supply and components business, and now has grown from a small company of more than a dozen people to a multinational enterprise with 80,000 employees, providing power management and cooling solutions for the world. Li Zeyuan said that Zheng Chonghua has always maintained his enthusiasm for work, his love for technology, and his frugal attitude toward life for decades, which has influenced Delta to always put energy saving and carbon reduction on the priority of enterprise development and continue to make innovative breakthroughs in power electronics technology.

At present, the efficiency of Delta power products is more than 90%, the efficiency of communication power supplies is 98%, the efficiency of solar photovoltaic inverters is 99.8%, and the efficiency of automotive DC power converters is 96%. Between 2010 and 2022, its energy efficient products have saved approximately 39.9 billion KWH of electricity for customers worldwide, equivalent to a reduction of 21.05 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

"We have built distributed smart grid and energy storage solutions in many places to enhance grid resilience with technology, and hope to do our part for energy transformation with action." In Zheng Chonghua's view, in order to deal with the climate crisis, the construction of a new power system with new energy as the main body is an important way to promote the clean and low-carbon energy transformation and help the "double carbon" goal, which has a lot to do with the development of power electronics disciplines and technologies.

With Delta's core advantages in power electronics technology, Zheng Chonghua and Li Zeyuan have devoted more than 20 years to promoting domestic power electronics education and talent training. Li Zeyuan bluntly said that in the past two decades, the development of power electronics technology in China was beyond his expectation.

Cultivate "seeking good" talents

The year 2000 was a turning point for China's economic take-off and the development of power electronics in China. Before this, there were not many domestic universities offering this subject.