Project description
Pushing electrical power conversion towards the lossless limit
Modern power converters already achieve remarkable efficiency, but there is room for improvement. With over 100 000 GW of converters installed worldwide, even small gains in efficiency can bring major global energy savings. Current approaches, however, remain constrained by trade-offs and incremental advances in semiconductor technology. Achieving near-lossless conversion remains one of the biggest challenges in electrical engineering. In this context, the ERC-funded TolleConverter project explores the partial-power processing (PPP) approach. Its aim is to drastically reduce overall losses. Specifically, it will build on recent breakthroughs showing efficiencies beyond 99.7 %. The project’s goal is to push conversion efficiency to 99.9 %. From solid-state heat pumps to energy harvesters, TolleConverter will pave the way for sustainable, ultra-efficient energy conversion.
Objective
"Electrical energy is typically converted four times between source and load, by over 100.000 GW installed converters. Over 99% efficiency is already reality, e.g. in PV inverters, however in a trade-off with power-density and complexity. Thus, most converters stay below the technical performance limits. Incremental advances in semiconductor technology will continuously push these limits’ values, but does not fundamentally change it.
This project takes a disruptive approach, investigating partial-power-processing (PPP): Recently, we operated a 99%-efficient 2-level half-bridge in a multilevel topology, increasing the external capacitive-load charging voltage and power 6-times, while keeping the inner losses almost constant. From 2 to 7 level operation monotonically improved the system efficiency from 99% to over 99.7%. A global maximum was not yet reached. PPP theoretically reduces the losses by a factor of N, if only 1/N of the power is converted by a lossy converter while most power is delivered directly to the load by almost-lossless bypass switches from energy buffers.
The question is: ""How can electrical conversion efficiency be further increased with partial-power-processing, targeting 99.9% for selected loads?”
To approach this “lossless” energy conversion, we will (1) theoretically further investigate PPP and many-level converter topologies, semiconductor devices, and operation parameters, (2) design and characterize converters with two cascaded stages of internally already PPP converter-submodules in a novel way to further improve the system efficiency 3 times (to 99.9%). We will investigate (3) low-voltage (< 100 V), medium-voltage (< 1000 V) and high-voltage (< 10 kV) PPP converters, and cascade them to multiply their benefits. (4) Application to selected, initially capacitive-load applications (electrocaloric heat-pump, pyroelectric harvester, dielectric actuators).
The project will push electrical energy conversion further towards the “lossless” limit."
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2025-STG
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70174 Stuttgart
Germany
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