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

"Electronics is an applied discipline that is closely integrated with areas like industry, and technology transfer happens all the time as long as things are done well." Li Zeyuan said that many companies are not aware of the need for power electronics technology until they have developed.

"If enterprises want to find talents, they first target teachers in colleges and universities. But at that time there were not many experienced teachers, and companies wanted to poach teachers. So how can power electronics be revitalized?" He suggested to Zheng Chonghua that if he wanted to do something about education, he could do two things: one is to develop the power electronics discipline, and the other is to provide "unconditional" research funding for the relevant schools.

Since Delta entered the Chinese mainland market in 1992 and established Zhongda Dentsu, Zheng Chonghua has been thinking about how to play the power of the enterprise to make some contributions to education.

Under the joint initiative of Zheng Chonghua and Li Zeyuan, Delta has set up the "Delta Power Electronics Science and Education Development Program" and the "China Delta Scholars Program" (hereinafter referred to as the "Science and Education Programs") since 2000 to promote the talent training of power electronics and electrical transmission and other related disciplines in universities and encourage outstanding scholars who have made innovative research contributions in this field. The project has invited Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Xi 'an Jiaotong University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Shanghai University, Harbin Institute of Technology, Beijing Jiaotong University, Shanghai Jiaotong University and Hefei University of Technology to participate in 10 key universities, and since 2023, North China Electric Power University and Hunan University, a famous university of electric power system, have been invited to join.

For the strength of cooperative institutions, Li Zeyuan said that it mainly depends on the importance of the school to the subject of power electronics. If we pay attention to it, we will make more efforts so that they can go one step further. It is hoped that through Delta's "Science and Education Two programs", more talents will be encouraged to enter the field of power electronics.

As a "high-yield" technical researcher, Li Zeyuan has made outstanding achievements in the field of high-frequency power conversion and power electronic systems. His soft switching technology and multiphase voltage regulation module technology have become the core technologies of modern power electronics and are widely used around the world. And he has only one piece of advice for young talents in the new era: "Play your ability and maintain a 'good' mentality." In his view, there is no limit to human ability, not limited to "what I can only do." This is similar to Delta's "dedication" to energy conservation and carbon reduction.

Cross-border integration to build a new type of power system

At present, the world is accelerating the transformation of the energy structure, and China's installed capacity of non-fossil energy power generation has historically exceeded that of fossil energy, which has brought positive impact on the world. According to the "Renewable Energy Capacity Statistics 2023" of the International Renewable Energy Agency, China contributed about 48% of the global total renewable energy capacity increase in 2022. Two-thirds of the world's new hydropower capacity, 45% of new solar capacity, half of new wind capacity and 57% of new bioenergy capacity were deployed in China that year.

With the increasing proportion of non-fossil energy power generation and total consumption, "building a new power system with a gradually increasing proportion of new energy" has become the general trend. In the development and utilization of new energy, power electronics technology will play an important supporting role.

Twenty years after the implementation of Delta's "Science and Education Two programs", Li Zeyuan made a new proposal to Zheng Chonghua and Delta, that is, to promote the development of "cross-border integration" in other fields such as power electronics and power systems.

"The power system of the future will be many times larger than the current power system, and power electronics are the 'protagonists' in this transformation." In the past, power electronics and power systems were two different fields, they did what they did and we did what we did, but they have to work together for the next 30 years." Li Zeyuan said.

Therefore, from this year, Delta, on the basis of the original "Science and education programs" funding scope, officially launched the "Electric electronic new power system special" funding, two projects a year, providing research funds of 3 million yuan each, to encourage interdisciplinary and cross-field cooperation among universities.