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Medium-voltage converters could offer a more affordable and efficient way to shuttle electricity from power plants to homes and businesses. NREL’s new testbed could help advance these promising technologies. Photo by Josh Bauer, NRELA new kind of grid technology, called medium-voltage silicon carbide converters, could help the U.S. grid smoothly transition to renewable energy. Photo by Josh Bauer, NRELAnd that is a problem.
Mather is leading this project, which was funded in part by the U.S. Department of Energy and is known as theproject, or GADTAMS. GADTAMS wrapped up in December 2023. But the project’s successes, which include a first-of-its-kind prototype and fully functional testbed to study and improve these novel grid technologies, could help the U.S. grid evolve.Medium-voltage electricity is what’s pumping through the power lines outside your window—unless you live in Europe.
Say a tree limb falls on a power line, cutting off electricity to a neighborhood. Today, a utility worker can open and close switches in a transformer to move power from a nearby line into the disrupted one and restore at least some power while workers remove the tree.Replace a transformer with a back-to-back converter and power can be redirected automatically, reducing outage times.
Power sharing is not just beneficial in emergencies. Many of today’s rooftop solar panels must first convert their energy to low voltages and then to a medium voltage. With medium-voltage converters, that energy can skip an unnecessary hurdle. Next, the team hopes to use their testbed to study more medium-voltage grid technologies and hydrogen electrolysis or even build a new facility that can demonstrate higher-power prototypes. Photo by Josh Bauer, NRELMedium-voltage converters are still a relatively new technology. That means they must undergo extensive testing to ensure they are efficient, affordable, and safe enough to introduce to the U.S. power grid.
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