PRESENT AND FUTURE OF POWER ELECTRONICS (I). INTRODUCTION AND HIGH POWER APPLICATIONS
Keywords:
Power electronics, electronic regulators, static converters, power supplies, uninterruptible power supplies, voltage stabilizers, motor speed controllers, line conditioners, static transfer switches, power qualityAbstract
Power electronics has applications throughout countless fields of industry, war,
transport, public buildings, communications, informatics, domestics and electro-medical
equipment. Although normally ignored, as it serves the subsidiary roll of supplying
energy to equipments and electrical setups, its applications and implantation are
constantly growing. Its power range is very large, covering from more than five
thousand megawatts in DC transmission, to tenths of watts in micro-power converters
for mobile telephones and personal medical apparatuses. Its multidisciplinary character
and universality makes of power electronics a technological synergic vortex where
semiconductor physics, electrical engineering, heat transfer thermal management,
control theory, industry communications, transport and almost every industrial process
are brought together. This paper, first of two, considers the general aspects of power
electronics and its applications in the high power range.
