Abstract: In recent years, the automotive and aerospace industries have brought stringent reliability constraints on power electronic converters because of safety requirements. Today customers of many power electronic products expect up to 20 years of lifetime and they also want to have a “failure free period” and all with focus on the financials. The renewable energy sectors are also following the same trend, and more and more efforts are being devoted to improving power electronic converters to account for reliability with cost-effective and sustainable solutions. This presentation will introduce the recent progress in the reliability aspect study of power electronic converters for power electronic applications with special focus on renewables. It will cover the following contents: the motivations for highly reliable electric energy conversion in renewable energy systems; the reliability requirements of typical renewable energy systems and its implication on the power electronic converters; failure mechanisms and lifetime models of key power electronic components (e.g., power semiconductor switches, capacitors, and fans); long-term mission profiles in Photovoltaic (PV) and wind power applications and the component level stress analysis; reliability analysis methods, tools, and improvement strategies of power electronic converters for renewable energy systems. A few case studies on PV and wind power based renewable energy systems will also be discussed.

Biography: Frede Blaabjerg (S’86–M’88–SM’97–F’03) was with ABB-Scandia, Randers, Denmark, from 1987 to 1988. From 1988 to 1992, he got the PhD degree in Electrical Engineering at Aalborg University in 1995. He became an Assistant Professor in 1992, an Associate Professor in 1996, and a Full Professor of power electronics and drives in 1998. From 2017 he became a Villum Investigator. He is honoris causa at University Politehnica Timisoara (UPT), Romania and Tallinn Technical University (TTU) in Estonia.
His current research interests include power electronics and its applications such as in wind turbines, PV systems, reliability, harmonics and adjustable speed drives. He has published more than 500 journal papers in the fields of power electronics and its applications. He is the co-author of two monographs and editor of 7 books in power electronics and its applications.
He has received 26 IEEE Prize Paper Awards, the IEEE PELS Distinguished Service Award in 2009, the EPE-PEMC Council Award in 2010, the IEEE William E. Newell Power Electronics Award 2014 and the Villum Kann Rasmussen Research Award 2014. He was the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS from 2006 to 2012. He has been Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Power Electronics Society from 2005 to 2007 and for the IEEE Industry Applications Society from 2010 to 2011 as well as 2017 to 2018. In 2018 he is President Elect of IEEE Power Electronics Society.
He is nominated in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 by Thomson Reuters to be between the most 250 cited researchers in Engineering in the world. In 2017 he became Honoris Causa at University Politehnica Timisoara (UPT), Romania.