Keynote Presentation – 21 – 24 July 2025 | Penang, Malaysia

Keynote Presentation

Power Electronics Challenges for Medium Voltage and High Voltage Grids

Speaker: Michel Mermet-Guyennet
ITE Supergrid
Programme Director

The shift from AC grids to DC grids is no longer a question as the gain in efficiency, the gain in controllability and the suppression of reactive energy management lead to a huge potential of improvement for transmission and distribution of electric energy. Today, the transmission of electric energy is based on AC at High Voltage level and Medium Voltage level. The key component for AC transmission and distribution is electric transformer and historically, the AC frequency is 50Hz or 60Hz. DC current is used for electric transportation on very long distance (higher than 100 km) and AC/DC converter based on Multilevel Modular Converter topologies are used.

But the global shift to DC will take time as the investment is huge and the scenarios of developments between MV (AC&DC) and HV (AC&DC) are not clear today. Technically, the main needs to shift to DC is the equivalent of AC transformer and that will be the DC/DC converters with various topologies including medium frequency transformer. In addition, the evolution to multi-terminal DC & AC grid will requires power hubs, that are multi-terminal (AC&DC) power flow controllers.

This keynote will present the challenges in Power Electronics to enable the emergence of HV&MV DC/DC converters and HV&MV power hubs:

– Medium Frequency Transformers and Solid State Transformers

– High voltage components

– New strategies of control command (distributed or multi-agent control command )

– Condition and Health Monitoring for power electronics for optimal operation and maintenance

Airbus Electrification Overall View

Speaker: Gilles Peres
Airbus Group
Head of Electromagnetism Department

In recent years many projects have emerged in the field of hybrid and full electric propulsion for small aircraft and even for large aircraft. But many challenges remain around the high power, high voltage and associated technological bricks and integration in order to master the feasibility but also the safety, the weight, the reliability, the performance and cost of future electrical systems.

Accelerating Science, Technology Research and Transfer to Industry

Speaker: Ariel Sirat
IRT Saint-Exupery
General Manager

This keynote aims to generate discussion on strategies developed at the Technology Institute IRT Saint-Exupery to boost high value competitive technological sectors. IRT Antoine de Saint Exupéry is a world class excellence centre in Aeronautics, Space and Embedded Systems. This Institute of Technology combines resources from public and private partners to lead R&T activities in three strategic domains: High Performance Multifunctional Materials, More Electrical Aircraft and Embedded Systems. Applications targeted include aeronautics, space and embedded systems. Its world class expertise and technology platforms, as well as its highly integrated collaborative environment boost the maturation and transfer of breakthrough technologies (TRL 4-6) to its industrial partners.

POWER SYSTEM DESIGN FOR AIRCRAFT PROPULSION SYTEMS : IMPLICATIONS FOR DRIVES DEVELOPMENT

Speaker: Peter Malkin
Newcastle University
Strategic Research Advisor

The aerospace industry may seem to be in a strong position currently but the combination of increasing demand and limited future developments of the existing technology is forcing them to look for new radical solutions for future flight. Extensive studies have been carried out on the viability of using hybrid electric power for future aircraft (or full electric power for small aircraft). These studies suggest that this technology can offer very significant reductions in emissions and increases in efficiency. Despite the difficulties of this the industry is now investing seriously in this area. In addition many organisations around the world have become interested in designing electrically powered short range helicopter type vehicles known as eVTOLs to create a new short-term transportation systems. Currently over 150 companies are building and testing such devices.

All these developments depend critically on electrical power systems that need to be designed specifically for aviation applications. These applications require new levels of power density and efficiency to be achieved and this is driving R&D to try and design such systems. Electrical drives are, of course, key components of these systems. The paper will summarise these drivers and indicate some of the implications for systems and drives in the future.