Fundamentals and Applications of Medium-Voltage High-Power Converters
Prof. Hirofumi Akagi，Tokyo Institute of Technology
 

Abstract：
Recent advances in Silicon-Carbide (SiC) device and packaging technologies have made the 1.2/1.7/3.3-kV MOSFET/SBD modules available from the market, and the 2-kV and 6.5-kV modules under development. As a result, much attention has been paid to medium-voltage high-power converters.
This tutorial will highlight medium-voltage high-power converters with focus on the so-called “multilevel converters,” and their applications to motor drives and grid connections. It consists of the following three parts:
Part 1. Fundamentals of multilevel inverters, and their applications to motor drives.
Part 2. Applications to grid connections, such as STATCOMs and HVDC systems.
Part 3. The combination of DAB converters with modular multilevel SSBC converters for motor drives and grid connections in the near future.
Finally, it will be followed by a question & answer session.

Biography：

Dr. Hirofumi Akagi was born in Okayama, Japan, in August 1951. He received his Ph. D. degree in electrical engineering from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan, in 1979. Since 2000, he has been Professor, currently Distinguished Professor, at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Prior to it, he was with the University of Okayama, Okayama, Japan, from 1991 to 1999, and the Nagaoka University of Technology, Nagaoka, Japan, from 1979 to 1991. His research interests include power conversion systems and motor drives. He has authored and coauthored more than 140 IEEE Transactions/Journal papers, and three invited, single-author papers in Proceedings of the IEEE. According to Google Scholar. his all-time citations reach more than 62,000 times with an h-index of 103.
Dr. Akagi has received six IEEE Transactions Prize Paper Awards and 16 IEEE Industry Applications Society Committee Prize Paper Awards. He is the recipient of the 2001 IEEE Power Electronics Society William E. Newell Award, the 2004 IEEE Industry Applications Society Outstanding Achievement Award, the 2008 IEEE Richard H. Kaufmann Award, the 2012 IEEE Power & Energy Society Nari Hingorani Custom Power Award, the 2018 IEEE Medal in Power Engineering, and the 2020 EPE (European Power Electronics and Drives Association) Gaston Maggetto Medal. He is the world-first, and currently only, winner of both IEEE and EPE medals.
Dr. Akagi was elected as an IEEE Fellow in 1996, followed by an IEEE Life Fellow in 2020. He served as the President of the IEEE Power Electronics Society from 2007 to 2008, and as the IEEE Division II Director from 2015 to 2016.