During June, Dr. José I. León of Universidad de Sevilla, and an IEEE Fellow, visited the Advanced Center of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (AC3E) as part of a collaboration with Dr. Samir Kouro and Dr. Christian Rojas, who are researchers at the Renewable Energies and Power Conversion line. The collaboration is focused on critical components of power converters, studying their lifetime and trying to make them more reliable. Drs. Kouro and Rojas also focus on extending equipment warranties from a customer’s perspective.

The topic is novel because it focuses on systems that are not yet used widely but are projected to become more common. Capacities to extend usage and obtain competitive advantages already exist, however.

Power electronics is increasingly present in energy transition applications such as renewable energy systems (photovoltaic and wind power), electric cars or green hydrogen production, making the reliability of power converters a key issue.

On June 19, Dr. León gave a lecture on “Useful Life Management of Power Converters” to students. He talked about increasing reliability, while lowering the failure rate and extend useful life.

The main objective was to address remaining useful life (RUL) and accumulated damage to power semiconductors and capacitors in power converters, and, in turn, to present a method of component lifetime management, considering efficiency, RUL, fault tolerance, and equipment availability.