Power converters play a vital role of many important technological novelties. They can be seen in modern electric trains, cars, aircrafts, charging stations, and many others. With the growing global electrification process, their applications are becoming more and more.
What is a power converter?
Modern industrial power converters are fully fledged devices that convert AC or DC from one voltage range to DC from another voltage range. Contemporary high power converters might weigh as much as 40 – 50 kilograms in order to ensure proper performance and cooling of the inside components. These devices offer both air and liquid cooling systems, depending of the requirements of the application they are used in.
Software is also an important part of these units because many complicated operations and controls are required in order to automize the process of modern power conversion. In addition, these devices can be made to work in bidirectional mode. For example, they have the capacity to both charge and discharge a battery.
Why are they important?
As we mentioned, converters are an indispensable part of electric vehicles and charging infrastructure. Let’s take for example an electric car charging station. As you may know, generally the electrical grid provides AC but the car battery accepts only DC. Therefore, a conversion is needed to transform the AC from the grid at one voltage to DC at a voltage level acceptable for the car. The car, itself, might have another onboard converter to transport the DC voltage coming from the charging station to the level, acceptable by its battery.
High power converters are an indispensable part of the modern electrical network and tendencies show that their importance will continue to grow.