FlexH2 starts a series of posts about the different technologies that are being developed within the project
This is the first edition, we will not go into technical details here but rather provide a basis for understanding the technology developed and provide a sufficient context of its relevance in the energy transition. The first Reflexion is written by Zian Qin, Assistant Professor, Delft University of Technology.
Solid State Transformers: When being less gives you more
You may have ever used a transformer, or at least you may have seen a box as shown in Figure 1. In our utility grid, the voltages of the power generators (e.g. power plants, wind farms, solar farms) and loads (e.g. buildings, households, factories) are usually low (e.g. 230 V, 690 V) for safety reasons, while when the power is transmitted from the generator to the loads, the voltage is usually increased to very high (e.g. 220 kV) to enable a long-distance transmission (e.g. hundreds of km). Transformers are used to step up/down voltages.
Get more insight into the use of transformers and why voltages are increased and decreased in different parts of our utility grid. Read the ReFlexion of Zian here
