A next gen supercharger installed in half the time, half the space, half the cost, with half the losses of today’s technology.
This is the place to discuss the project and its future plans.
I’ve been following this project for a number of years. It seems Ken and Dr. Wu are pretty close to getting this out into the world. For anyone wondering, Dr. Wu is an expert in inverter technology. He patented the inverter that most solar panels use today. This project is pretty cool since they are using solid state electronics.
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I see the video and the provisional patent; given the patent and license to a startup for solar inverter, what steps are you taking to commercialize this technology for EV charging?
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Could someone elaborate on how the paralleling of thyristors with SiC switches achieves such significant cost savings without compromising performance?
Paralleling Si with SiC gives the same performance as an all SiC solution but at lower cost compare to the all SiC solution. So it is not cheaper than today’s Si solutions but we’re competing against the state of the art which is the all SiC option. We get this performance because Si is cheaper that SiC and our design lets Si do most of the work and uses SiC only when needed. The controls are also simpler and the supporting circuits and cooling system are also lower cost due to lower operating temperatures of the devices for the comparable power levels.
Ken Dulaney: Our startup has also submitted grant applications to expand the field of use to EV charging. Specifically, we enrolled in an Army program to develop tactical vehicle chargers.
What about thermal management? does the patent or intended approach account for any thermal issues, especially when scaling to 300kw for EV charging?
Ken Dulaney: Nothing specific in the patent about thermal management; those issues would be considered in the funded project as we build the prototype.
Having effective thermal management seems like the key to making this technology viable as a product that could be made profitable. And making a product that is profitable is the key to making this technology widely adopted and used in the real world.
Agree that thermal management is important but these issues have been addressed for dozens of power electronics applications in the past and researchers are developing new approaches to improve heat transfer all the time. Not to minimize the importance of this topic but it is something that is relatively easy to manage.
@lowmancharles what’s your background? IOW any expertise in thermal management?
@kadulane is there anything about thermal management left out of the patent application intentionally for strategic reasons—or is it because it’s not that much of a barrier. Just wondering if thermal management could be a competitive differentiator (especially in such a field, where exploding Tesla’s make the nightly news), if not for technical reasons but for social mindshare / winning hearts & minds.
Thermal was not left out intentionally in the patent but primarily because the novelty of the design is in the combination of devices. One of the advantages of our topology is operating at reduced temperatures which extends the life of the devices but also reduces size, weight, and cooling power needs if applicable. So yes, reduced cooling loads is an advantage.
Hi there! Love this idea; I worked on inverters with Dr Husain when I was at FREEDM.
Question, what specific technical advantages do SiC switches offer in this application—iow, how does combining SiC switches with thyristors boost the charger’s efficiency? What about air-cooled chargers?
Think that’s already been answered ^^
Paralleling Si with SiC gives the same performance as an all SiC solution but at lower cost compare to the all SiC solution. So it is not cheaper than today’s Si solutions but we’re competing against the state of the art which is the all SiC option. We get this performance because Si is cheaper that SiC and our design lets Si do most of the work and uses SiC only when needed. The controls are also simpler and the supporting circuits and cooling system are also lower cost due to lower operating temperatures of the devices for the comparable power levels.
Air cooled, do you mean like with/without heat sinks, etc? I assume the use case is good in EVs—especially with limited moving parts being involved. But, that probably comes down to specific architectures and utilization patterns. Need more intel on specifics.
@GBiddell527 Here’s a response from Dr. Yu:
SiC switches offer 3 to 5 times higher switching frequency to enable 50%-70% size and weight reduction compared to Silicon IGBT solution in this application, while keeping the grid current total harmonic distortion lower than 3%.
The thyristor’s conduction loss is much lower than that of IGBT. SiC switches can reduce the switching loss. As a result, both conduction loss and switching losses are reduced and the charger’s efficiency is boosted.
Combining SiC switches with thyristors enables air-cooled chargers, which saves the cost of cooling system compared to liquid-cooling.
Thank you @kadulane.
Given Tesla’s move to cut SiC usage by 75% for its Cybertruck and beyond, in a world where SiC tech is becoming a big deal for EVs, what does this mean? Especially when everyone else is doubling down on SiCs. Why the change? Is there something I’m missing?
If too much or I’m going in the wrong direction, perhaps you could point to some details or a paper?
Greg, I think the last paragraph of your reference has the answer (copied below). Tesla is not moving away from SiC, they are just optimizing their design to reduce costs. SiC is still expensive. This announcement by Tesla is more like Ford removing as much steel from their trucks as possible. It’s a cost cutting move without reducing quality. Our design for this charger has a similar goal: to optimize performance while achieving low cost. Here’s that paragraph from your link:
It is worth remembering that SiC MOSFETs were only introduced to the automotive sector at scale with Tesla’s release of the original Model 3 in 2018. The inverter design currently in use across Tesla’s line-up is similar to this original inverter. IDTechEx expects that the announced reduction is being driven by smaller and more advanced SiC chips reaching commercialization alongside the five years of real-world experience and understanding of SiC chip thermal management. It is also likely that Tesla’s initial SiC inverter design was optimized for redundancy – extra chips – with the design now being optimized for cost and efficiency.