2013 IEEE GCC Conference and exhibition, November 17-20, Doha, Qatar
How Power Electronics contribute
to the Current Energy Arena
Leopoldo G. Franquelo and Jose I. Leon
Electronics Engineering Department
University of Seville
Seville, Spain 41092
Email: lgfranquelo@ieee.org
Abstract—The current energy scenario has introduced several
challenges to be solved such as the efficient electrification of
the oil and gas applications, the integration of clean energy
generation, the use of efficient high-power and energy storage
systems and the electric vehicles development. The energy in-
dustry and the electrical providers have to face the problems
introduced by the integration of renewable energy systems in
terms of reliability and stability of the power grid. The grid
has to be robust and efficient in terms of reduced losses. In this
way, for instance energy distribution systems based on the HVDC
topology are being installed all over the world. On the other hand,
it becomes extremely important to use energy storage systems in
order to stabilize and improve the efficiency of the power systems
using ultimate generation batteries, ultracapacitors, hydrogen
based systems and mechanical systems, just to mention a few.
On the other hand, the electrical vehicles (hybrid or pure
electrical) need high performance power electronic systems to
drive efficiently the power. This paper reviews briefly the current
scenario where power electronics converters are being applied.
In the manuscript, the main focus moves towards the energy
distribution systems, the renewable energy sources, the energy
storage systems and the electric vehicle applications, reviewing
the different alternatives and topologies, already as industrial
products or still as research lines in the academia.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Among the different electronic topics, power electronics is a
discipline with very specific issues clearly different from other
areas such as analog, digital or RF, where the main objective is
to process an information. On the other hand, solid state power
electronic systems deal with the electric energy conversion. It
is a relatively recent technology because its first steps can be
dated in the mid 50’s with the commercialization of the SCR.
However, its effects on our lives are everyday more and more
clear leading to an important reduction in economical cost,
size and increase of performances of the energy systems [1].
The non-stop development of new and more efficient power
semiconductors and the use of advanced control techniques,
implemented in modern digital microprocessors, has made
possible many of the desirable characteristics of modern power
systems. Today important markets can be found in areas as
diverse as: industrial, commercial, residential, transportation,
utility, aerospace and military among others. One possible
classification could be done taking into account three main
scenarios and is presented in Table I, where the main appli-
cations, benefits of applying power electronics and the salient
requirements are presented.
978-1-4799-0724-3/13/$31.00 ©2013 IEEE 165
The power rating for these scenarios can be ranged from
small consumer applications (around watts) to the power grid
applications where very high-power applications are needed
(around hundreds of megawatts or gigawatts). Power elec-
tronics plays a crucial role as provider of the technology to
improve the efficiency and stability of the systems.
II. T HE P OWER G RID
Currently, the power grid is continuously changing being
adapted to fulfill minimum requirements in terms of nominal
power, stability and reliability [2], [3]. Talking about oil
and gas onshore and offshore substations, power electronics
medium-voltage converters drive compressors and pumps for
use in gas treatment plants, re-injection plants, export gas
compression stations, etc. These compression and pumping
solutions (usually from 1 to 100 MW) contribute to safer, more
reliable and cost-efficient processing.
On the other hand, the increasing demand of energy of the
companies and housing leads to install new power plants or
buy the energy to neighbor regions or countries. This fact
leads to implement a energy distribution grid which has to be
decentralized allowing the interconnection of power systems
from different regions. This multiple interconnection between
different power grids improves the stability and reliability of
the overall energy generation and distribution system.
In addition, the hazardous nuclear waste, the highly critical
fossil fuel world energy dependency, the global warming effect
and the CO2 emissions of the coal and fossil fuels also drive
to develop new and clean energy generation sources. The
main objective of these new systems is to generate electricity
efficiently with a minimum impact in terms of waste. The
renewable energy sources have contributed in this sense in a
fundamental way at the expense of introducing an stochastic
behavior of the power grid due to the non constant presence
of the energy source. In this way, the integration of renewable
energy sources in the grid has lead to the development of a
decentralized distributed energy system with multiple energy
generation systems but at the expense of making critical the
stability of the grid.
The modern distributed structure of a power grid can be seen
in Fig. 1. This structure presents a high meshed network, high
integration of renewable energies an and adequate connection
between other grids. This new distribution grid concept solves
 2013 IEEE GCC Conference and exhibition, November 17-20, Doha, Qatar

Fig. 1. Modern scenario of the electrical grid

the typical problems of the classical structure of the power
grid by using power electronic converters [4].
III. E NERGY T RANSPORTATION AND D ISTRIBUTION
S YSTEMS
More than a century ago, Edison and Westinghouse (this one
using Tesla’s patents) were working hard on DC or AC elec-
trical energy respectively. In that time, finally AC distribution
network was demonstrated superior because it achieves less
distribution losses in large distances because the ac voltage can
be easily raised using transformers [20]. Nowadays, this issue
is still very important and power electronics are helping to take
advantage of each kind of energy (AC and DC) depending
on the connection distance and environmental issues (DC
connection needs less area to be installed and is normally
used in submarine lines). In this way, the necessary efficient
interconnection of different nature distributed generation sys-
tems can be achieved by different power electronic converters.
Modern power electronics converters are helping in bringing

TABLE I
M AIN APPLICATIONS , BENEFITS AND REQUIREMENTS OF POWER ELECTRONICS

Consumer Electronics Automotive and Transport Power grids and Industry

Battery chargers Trains Generation (conventional and alternative)
Switched power supplies Automotive Distribution
Applications
Portable Devices Aerospace Load side
Household appliances Storage
More efficient systems More electrical vehicles More efficiency and stability
Energy savings More efficiency and availability More integration of alternative energies
Benefits Stability and robustness New power and traction systems More grid flexibility
Decrease size and weight Low maintenance costs Increase reliability and robustness
Integration into portable devices Storage and regenerative systems
Decrease losses Decrease losses, weight and size More complexity
Challenges and Decrease production costs Increase of power managed Decrease losses
Requirements High reliability Increase reliability Larger power generators
Noise reduction Larger industrial motors

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 2013 IEEE GCC Conference and exhibition, November 17-20, Doha, Qatar
us the best of both AC and DC worlds.
In the related field of the AC distribution grid, the so-
called flexible AC transmission systems (FACTS) have been
developed in order to improve the power quality, power
stability and the reactive power compensation. The static var
compensator (SVC) is well established and still represents
an important technology for transmission and distribution
systems. Its equivalent voltage source converter, the static
synchronous compensator (STATCOM) is available on high-
voltage and medium-voltage transmission networks [21].
On the other hand, high-voltage DC systems (HVDC) can
connect efficiently distant points with reduced losses and
environmental impact. Looking at the overall system eco-
nomics, HVDC transmission systems are most competitive at
transmission distances over 100 km or power levels of between
approximately 200 and 900 MW [5]. The HVDC transmission
offers many advantages over HVAC such as:
• AC frequencies of both grids on each AC side are
independent and could be different.
• Transmission distance using DC is not affected by cable
charging current.
• Offshore installation is isolated from mainland distur-
bances and viceversa.
• Power flow is fully defined and controllable.
• Cable power losses are lower.
• Power-transmission capability per cable is higher.
Classical HVDC transmission systems are based on
thyristors-based current source converters, which are called
line-commutated converters (LCCs) and only can transfer
power between two active AC networks. On the other hand,
HVDC transmission systems based on voltage source con-
verters (VSC) are gaining more and more attention for the
connection of long distance power lines. As another example,
a HVDC application in the last decade is the connection of the
offshore wind farms to the grid transmitting the power safely
and efficiently to the load centers. VSC-based HVDC systems
have advantages such as independent control of the active and
reactive power, which may reduce the need for reactive-power
compensation and can contribute to the stabilization of the
AC network at their connection points [5]. Nowadays, VSC
based solutions are marketed by several companies (among
others, by ABB under the name HVDC Light and by Siemens
under the name HVDC Plus). The HVDC plus converter is also
named modular multilevel converter (MMC) and it is formed
by the connection of multiple half-bridge power cells allowing
a high voltage value in the DC connection [6].
IV. I NTEGRATION OF R ENEWABLE E NERGY S YSTEMS
As previously commented, the global warming effect, the
necessary reduction in the contaminant emissions and the huge
dependance on the fossil fuels (day by day more expensive)
has lead in the last decades to develop new energy sources
based on renewable systems. The renewable energy sources
are mainly the following:
• Hydroelectric Energy
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• Geothermal Energy
• Wind Energy
• Solar energy (photovoltaic or thermal)
• Wave Energy
• Tidal Energy
• Biomass
• Other alternative sources
A classification of the current renewable energy sources
is represented in Fig. 2, where they are classified depending
on their nominal power, the usual power converters and the
corresponding power semiconductors required for the grid
integration (if needed), the availability of the renewable energy
source and the corresponding technology trend. The distributed
location of the increasing number of renewable energy sources
requires specific operation and management procedures in
order to maintain or even to improve the power reliability and
quality.
Nowadays, and step by step gaining prominence, the re-
newable energy sources play an important role in the energy
generation market. In order to show this fact, the Energy
Information Administration - EIA (Official Energy Statistics
from the U.S. Government) estimates that in 2011 about 10%
of world marketed energy consumption was from renewable
energy sources (hydropower, biomass, biofuels, wind, geother-
mal, and solar), with a projection of 14% by 2035. In addition,
EIA estimates that in 2011 about 19% of world electricity
generation was from renewable energy, with a projection of
nearly 23% in 2035. For instance, in Spain a 32.4% of the
energy consumed during 2011 was generated by renewable
energy sources, being the most important energy source of
the year [7].
The power conversion plays an important role in the inte-
gration of renewable energy sources into the electrical grid
developing efficient and cost-effective power converters. The
contribution of renewable energy sources such as wind energy,
photovoltaic energy and wave energy is currently limited
compared with the hydro power.
However, wind energy is a mature technology and has
become viable in the last decades. Worldwide wind power
capacity increased by 20% in 2011 achieving around 238
GW. Currently, China is the leader and accounted for almost
44% of the global market, followed by the United States and
India while Germany remained the largest market in Europe.
However, it should be said that although its market share
remained relatively small, the offshore wind sector continued
to expand, with the use of larger turbines and going to deeper
water, farther from shore.
Initially wind turbines with the power flow controlled by
converters for double-fed induction machines were the most
suitable solution to connect the wind generator to the dis-
tribution grid. However, this solution has found problems to
fulfill the ride through grid codes imposed to assure minimum
power reliability, stability and quality in the grid. Nowadays,
the new wind turbine’s generation is based on the connection
of the wind turbine to the grid by using a full back-to-back
power converter topology (see Fig. 3). Finally, gearless energy
 2013 IEEE GCC Conference and exhibition, November 17-20, Doha, Qatar

Geothermal
Housing applications Solar Energy Marine/Fluvial Energy Wind Energy
Energy

Renewable
Energy Systems
Solar
Thermal PV Solar Wave Tidal Wind
Roof PV Roof Plants Thermal Energy Energy Hydroelectric Energy Geothermal

Maximum 6 MW per
50 kW 250 MW 370 MW 150 kW 256 MW 14 GW 720 MW
nominal power Turbine

Usual converter DC /AC - DC/DC -

AC/DC, DC/DC, DC/AC - Back-to-back -
topologies DC /DC - DC/AC -

Typical power - IGBT - IGBT

semiconductors MOSFET IGBT , IGCT - -
- IGCT - IGCT

Availability Solar irradiance dependance Random Intermittent Seasonal Intermittent Constant

Technology Gearless,
↑ Power Density ↑ Nominal Power ↑ Robustness ↓ Development
trend - Offshore,
↑ Efficiency ↑ Efficiency Under Storms cost
↑ Power

Fig. 2. Classification of the renewable energy sources

transmission using wind turbines with multi-pole machines
and connected to the grid using full back-to-back converters
(currently two-level or three-level topologies in the next future)
will lead to a new generation wind turbines.
About solar energy, the continuously decreasing prices for
the PV modules and the strong support of the governments to
push this technology lead to consider photovoltaic and solar
thermal energy as important actors in the present and future
renewable energy market. The global total installed power
of solar PV was roughly 70 GW at the end of 2011, to
be compared with just 1.5 GW in 2000. Over the past five
years (2006-2011), solar PV has averaged an annual growth
rate of over 50% (for instance, from 40 to 69.3GW during
2011) but PV generates today a few percent of total yearly
electricity production. Germany is the leader of this energy
sector accounting for almost 36% of the global market with
25GW installed followed by Italy (12.7GW), Japan (4.9GW),
US (4.4GW), Spain (4.2GW) and China (3GW). In 2011 the
growth has been mostly concentrated in a few countries like
Italy (from 3.5 to 12.7 GW), China, UK, France and US. Step
by step larger photovoltaic power plants are being constructed
achieving nowadays a nominal power up to 250 MW (Agua
Caliente Solar Project in USA).
The output of the PV panels is a DC voltage and the
existence of a power converter is required to generate an output
AC voltage. So, there is a big market for PV inverters with
different topologies (see Fig. 4). In general, there are three
possible configurations:
• Series and parallel connection of PV panels and a three-
phase central inverter. This configuration is common for
the PV plants (power range 10-250kW or even more) and
gives high efficiency and low cost at the expense of low
reliability and poor MPPT.
• String or multistring inverters usually for residential ap-
plications (less than 5kW). In these cases, each string
has its own converter so the MPPT can be obtained in a
better way. In addition, the modularity is higher so the
reliability and the fault tolerant capability are improved.
• PV systems where each PV panel has its own module
inverter commonly used for low power applications (less
than 500W). This configuration enables optimal MPPT at
the expense of increasing the cost.
Finally, other renewable energy sources such as the wave
energy and the tidal power plants are being the focus of
researchers all over the world. There are currently several
prototypes and power plants installed and the feasibility of
these technologies will be proven in the next decade. It is
expected that tidal energy will become an important source
and South Korea has planned to build in the next years several
power plants all in the multiple-hundred megawatts range [8].
V. E NERGY S TORAGE S YSTEMS
Energy Storage Systems (ESSs) are becoming more and
more important in the power utilities and transportation fields.
Traditionally the utilities have been using large and concen-
trated facilities for storing the energy (pumped hydro), but
modern smart grids require the use of numerous distributed
ESSs using different technologies [9]. The utilities take ad-
vantage of the storage capacity to shave energy consumption
peaks, to help with the grid stability assisting in the frequency
control and to assist to the energy arbitration process, storing
the energy when is cheaper and delivering it when is more
expensive. The intrinsic discontinuous character of renewable
energies can be tamed by the use of ESSs.

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 2013 IEEE GCC Conference and exhibition, November 17-20, Doha, Qatar

DFIG

Gearbox Grid

AC AC
DC DC

Reduced-capacity Converter

a)

AC AC
DC DC
Grid
Gearbox SCIG Full-capacity Converter
WRSG
PMSG
b)
Fig. 3. Configurations for the integration of a wind turbine in the electrical grid: a) Double-fed induction generator (DFIG) and a reduced-capacity back-to-
back converter. b) Electrical machine (wounded rotor induction generator (WRIG), Squirrel-cage induction generator (SCIG) or permanent magnet synchronous
generator (PMSG)) and a full-capacity back-to-back converter.

Module
Inverter
DC
AC

DC DC
DC DC DC
DC DC DC
Central String
Inverter AC
AC Inverter AC AC

Single-Phase
DC AC Bus

Multistring AC
Single-Phase Inverter
3-Phase Grid
AC Bus
Single-Phase
AC Bus

a) b) c) d)

Fig. 4. Configurations for the integration of a PV generation system: a) Series and parallel connection of PV panels and a three-phase central inverter. b)
Series connection of the PV panels forming a string and individual inverters per string. c) Multistring inverter formed by several DC/DC converters and a
central inverter. d) Module inverter dedicated to each PV panel.

In the transportation field, the ESSs are gaining visibility
in road transportation in pure electric or hybrid vehicles. The
railroad industry has taken advantage of the electrical drives
for many years, and systems with braking energy recovery
capacity are being used to increase the energy efficiency and
peak shavings.
Power Electronics Converters play an important role as
enabling technology for the connection of ESSs to the power
grid or to the motors/generators used in transportation systems,
as in many cases the ESS stores the energy in the form of a

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 2013 IEEE GCC Conference and exhibition, November 17-20, Doha, Qatar
Vanadium redox flow TESS
1000
Sodium sulfur
300
Lead acid
100
Ni-Cd
30 Li-Ion
Time(min)
10 Flywheels SMES
3 0
1
EDLC
0.3
Transport applications
0.1
0.01 0.1 1 10
Power(MW)
Fig. 5. Classification of the main energy storage systems
DC voltage, or mechanical means with variable speed.
In Fig. 5 (taken from [9]), the main technologies for ESS
are shown with their characteristic typical power and the time
that the system can sustain this power. It is clear that there is
an ample range that allows for many applications. In Fig. 5
the requirements for utility and transportation applications are
also marked, so it is easy to identify which of the different
technologies are typical for each application.
VI. H IGH -P OWER I NDUSTRIAL A PPLICATIONS
The solid state power electronics era started about 50 years
ago with the commercialization of the SCR. The evolution of
power electronic devices has been constant during these years,
but it can be said that the insulated gate bipolar transistor
(IGBT) in the mid 80’s and more recently the integrated gate-
commutated thyristor (IGCT) are currently the workhorses for
most of the industrial power converters. Even more recently,
silicon carbide based devices are a promising technology in
order to achieve better efficiency by reducing the losses and
are very suitable for high-power applications due to fact that
they can endure high operation temperatures. There has been
an important evolution of these devices in the last decades
and this has opened a new niche for advanced topologies that
overcome the maximum nominal power limitation.
The power converter for high-power applications can be
built based on high-power semiconductors (for instance using
6.6kV IGCTs). However, since multilevel converters appeared
in the last decades of the 20th century, they are a very attractive
solution due to their advantages in terms of high nominal
power, low voltage stress of the power devices and high
quality of the output waveforms [10]–[13]. Using a multilevel
converter, the nominal voltage of the dc-link can be increased
at the expense of using a higher number of power devices. The
output waveforms have improved quality taking advantage of
the extra voltage steps present in the topology as shown in
Pumped
Compressed air 8
hydro
Voltage [kV ]
0 (a )
V2G
-8
0 0 .005 0 .01 0.015 0 .02 0.025 0.03
8
Voltage [kV ]
Utility scale applications
0 (b)
-8
0 .005 0 .01 0.015 0 .02 0.025 0.03
8
Voltage [kV ]
0 (c)
-8
0 0 .005 0 .01 0.015 0 .02 0.025 0.03
100 1000 Time [s]
Fig. 6. Phase voltage and current waveforms of a two-level converter (a),
three-level converter (b) and nine-level converter (c)
Fig. 6, where the phase voltage and current of a two-level,
three-level and nine-level converter are shown.
As it was affirmed in [10], the age of multilevel converters
has arrived. Among the multilevel converter topologies, the
diode-clamped converter, also usually called neutral-point-
clamped converter (NPC), the flying capacitor converter (FC)
and the cascaded H-bridge converter (CHB) are the most
common ones. Other hybrid multilevel topologies have been
presented in the last years but usually they are based on these
three basic multilevel converter families [11].
The three-level NPC was introduced in 1981 and is the
multilevel converter topology with most current industrial
impact [14]. The NPC topology has become a mature solution
for high-power applications due to the high quality of the
harmonic spectra of the output waveforms, low switching
losses and acceptable economical cost. Issues as the DC
voltage balance control were overcome for the three-level NPC
and some three-level industrial products are commercialized
by international companies such as ABB, Siemens, Alstom,
Tmeic-Ge, Ansaldo, Converteam, Ingeteam, Eaton, Schneider
and Weg among others with power applications as oil and gas,
pumps and fans, compressors, mine hoists, conveyors, crushers
and mills, wind tunnels and marine drives.
On the other hand, the modularity (which is one of the draw-
backs of the NPC) is an important feature of the FC topology
which is formed by the series connection of basic power cells
composed by a capacitor and two power semiconductors with
opposite gating signals [15]. The voltage balance control of the
floating capacitors of the power cells can be naturally achieved
by using the phase-shifted PWM modulation technique [16].
The FC topology is especially well designed for applications
where the number of levels has to be high. To the authors best
knowledge, only one industrial product is present in the market
commercialized by Alstom as the four-level VDM 6000 (up to
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 2013 IEEE GCC Conference and exhibition, November 17-20, Doha, Qatar
9 MVA, IGBT or GTO based) [17]. It can be applied to fans
and pumps, compressors, conveyors and mills, mine winding
machines, propulsion drives in marine applications, as well as
all sectors of the metal industry.
Finally, the multilevel CHB topology introduced in [18] also
presents high modularity because it is composed by several
full H-bridges connected in series. A possible disadvantage
of the CHB topology is that independent DC sources are
needed for of each H-bridge. For this purpose, a complex
transformer with different secondaries can be used in order
to build an AC/AC converter. Other possible solution is to
use different DC sources to provide energy to the converter,
i. e., connecting different PV strings to each H-bridge or
building a hybrid power system with fuel cells, solar panels
and batteries [19]. Some industrial products are present in the
market commercialized by Siemens, Tmeic-Ge, LS Industrial
Systems, Arrowspeed, Yaskawa, Rxpe and Leader&Harvest
among others. It can be applied to retrofit, power generation,
power water/wastewater, oil and gas and pulp/paper. Finally,
as commented before, CHB converter or similar topologies
are well suited for power distribution applications such as
STATCOM or HVDC considering the power cells (h-bridges
or others) with floating capacitors.
VII. C ONCLUSIONS
The integration of renewable energy sources, the matching
between local consumption and generation and the multiple
interconnection between different regional grids are leading
to develop a new more distributed electrical grid. Power
Electronics offer alternatives to face the challenges of this new
distributed grid.
The integration of renewable energy sources can be achieved
by efficient power converters where the power flow and the
random or intermittent nature of the energy source are fully
controlled. New high-voltage dc distribution lines have been
installed using HVDC power converters achieving high effi-
ciency and, on the other hand, facilitating the inland connec-
tion of offshore wind farms. In the next future, last generation
energy storage systems will collaborate on the grid stability
and the matching between generation and consumption.
The improvement of the efficiency, the reliability and the
fault tolerant operation are the focus of the researchers all over
the world. Among the recently introduced power electronic
solutions, it can be affirmed that the multilevel converters have
experienced an important industrial impact with a brilliant
present and future for a high number of applications such as
the renewable energies integration and the power distribution
systems.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support
provided by the Andalusian Government under the project
P11-TIC-7070 and the Spanish Ministry of Education and
Science under the project ENE2012-36897.
171
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