Perspectives of SiC Power Devices in Highly Efficient Renewable Energy Conversion Systems

Abstract

In the long run, regenerative energy sources represent the most important alternatives to fossil fuels. In general, they are characterized by decentralized logistics and supply capabilities due to ihnerent lower energetic densitiy per are, when compared with the fossil counterparts. As a result, the increased use of regenerative energy sources will require decentralized structures for energy supply, consumption optimisation and regional balancing between supply and demand. Both, the more efficient utilization of fossil energy sources and the utilization of regenerative energy sources, lead to increasingly decentralized supply structures and can be understood as being both complementary and convergent in relation to each other. Most of the converter units for utilization of decentralized energy resources (DER) use power electronics for the AC power conditioning with grid quality. The current paper shows market perspectives of DER applications and the impact of SiC on these application.