Abstract: Power electronics technology has gained significant maturity after several decades of dynamic evolution of power semiconductor devices, converters, PWM techniques, electrical machines, motor drives, advanced control, and computer simulation techniques. With the maturing trend of the technology, 21st century will find tremendous emphasis on power electronics applications in every corner of industrial, residential, commercial, transportation, aerospace , military and electric utility systems. There will be increasing emphasis on application-oriented R&D in modularization, modeling, analysis, simulation, design, and experimental evaluations. Power electronics has now established as a major discipline in electrical engineering, and is gradually tending to merge as a high tech frontier technology with power engineering. In the 21st century, we expect to see the tremendous impact of power electronics not only in global industrialization and efficient energy systems, but also in energy conservation, renewable energy systems, and electric/hybrid vehicles. The resulting impact in mitigating climate change problems due to man-made environmental problems is expected to be considerable. There are ambitious predictions that renewable energy alone with adequate energy storage can supply all the energy needs of the world, and 90% of the automobiles will be electric by the end of the century. It appears that the role of power electronics in our society will tend to be as important and versatile as computers and information technology today. In fact, there is trend of merger of power electronics with computers, information technology and power engineering in the future “Smart Grid” to emerge as a complex interdisciplinary technology.
The presentation will begin with the discussion of global energy scenario, climate change problems due to burning of fossil fuels, and the consequences and remedial measures of global warming problems. The importance of power electronics relating to energy saving, renewable energy systems (wind, photovoltaic and fuel cells), bulk energy storage and electric/hybrid vehicles will be discussed in detail. The fuel cell and battery EVs will be compared, and the concept of Smart Grid will be discussed. Several example applications on HVDC wind park, FACT system, DTC drive system, axial flux PM machine EV drive, fuzzy control of wind generation system and neural network based feedback signal estimation will be discussed before coming to conclusion and future scenario of the technology.

Brief Biography of the Speaker:
Bimal K. Bose held the Condra Chair of Excellence (Endowed Chair Professor) in Power Electronics at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville since 1987, where he was responsible for teaching and research program in power electronics and motor drives. Concurrently, he was Distinguished Scientist (1989-2000) and Chief Scientist (1987-1989) of EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute)-Power Electronics Applications Center for promoting power electronics in USA. Prior to this, he was a Research Engineer in the GE Corporate Research and Development (now GE Global Research Center), Schenectady, NY for 11 years (1976-1987), an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY for five years (1971-1976), and a faculty member of Bengal Engineering and Science University for 11 years (1960-1971). He is specialized in power electronics and motor drives, specially including power converters, ac drives, PWM techniques, digital control, electric/hybrid vehicle drives, renewable energy systems, A-I applications, and has made many pioneering research contributions in these areas. He has been a power electronics consultant in large number of industries. He authored/edited 7 books in power electronics, holds 21 U.S. Patents for his inventions, and large number of research publications. He has given advanced tutorials, keynote addresses and invited seminars extensively throughout the world. He is a recipient of IEEE Power Electronics Society Newell Award (2005), IEEE Millennium Medal (2000), IEEE Meritorious Achievement Award (1997), IEEE Lamme Medal (1996), IEEE IAS Outstanding Achievement Award (1993), IEEE IES Mittelmann Award (1994), IEEE Region 3 Outstanding Engineer Award (1994), GE Silver Patent Medal (1986), Calcutta University Mouat Gold Medal (1970), IEEE Fellow (1989) and Life Fellow (1996), and many other awards for his research accomplishments. The IEEE Industrial Electronics Society Magazine published a special issue (June 2009) “Honoring Dr. Bimal Bose and Celebrating His Contributions in Power Electronics” with his photo on the cover page. He received B.E. degree in 1956, M.S. degree in 1960 and Ph.D. degree in 1966.