Driving the Green Revolution: 6 things every design engineer needs to know about Energy Management
The way we generate, store, transfer, and consume energy is undergoing a dramatic transformation. As demand for electric energy surges, renewable sources such as solar and wind are being increasingly integrated into power grids. As we continue to move towards a green technology environment, the focus is squarely on smart energy management and storage, as well as efficient consumption. To delve into these evolving dynamics, Avnet Silica recently hosted a webinar series with leading semiconductor experts from Diodes, Microchip, MPS, Nexperia, NXP, onsemi, Renesas, and STMicroelectronics. If you missed it, here is a quick Q&A to provide a key overview of the hot topics, main challenges, key technologies, and more that were discussed.
1. What are the main challenges in today’s evolving energy management and storage landscape?
The shift towards a greener future presents a multitude of challenges that semiconductor experts are actively addressing. Energy capacity is a primary concern, with global energy consumption expected to double or even triple by 2050, accompanied by rising peak demand spikes. This surge is driven by factors such as the expansion of data centres and cloud computing, residential and commercial construction, electrification in transportation, and increasing urbanisation. Alongside this, energy security is a growing issue, influenced by the rising costs of traditional fossil fuels, geopolitical factors, and the increasing reliance on intermittent renewable sources.
Sustainability remains a critical imperative, with global directives like COP 28 and numerous regional activities aiming to tackle climate change and achieve net-zero targets. This also necessitates a focus on the reuse and recycling of manufactured products. Efficiency is vital not only in energy production but also in its distribution and storage, particularly given AI’s massive appetite for energy. For instance, data centre power consumption is projected to rise by 160% by 2030, with AI workloads accounting for nearly 20% of that increase. This includes the energy-intensive task of extracting heat from server rooms, which can account for up to 40% of the electricity bill, meaning that cooling systems often require a similar amount of energy as the racks themselves.
The increasing digitalisation and interconnectedness of power systems also expand the attack surface for cybersecurity threats, which are continuously evolving. The compromise of such systems could lead to widespread failures, disrupting essential services and economic activities. Grid resilience is another major challenge, necessitating improved reliability, effective outage management, and solutions for peak demand, all while addressing the vulnerabilities of largely above-ground energy networks to extreme weather conditions. Finally, economic pressures stemming from rising capital expenditure and wholesale energy costs are driving the need for innovative funding solutions to maintain affordable customer billing and secure long-term investment. Overcoming these barriers requires significant investment, expertise, standardisation, and strong partnerships across the industry.
2. How are wide bandgap technologies like SiC and GaN transforming energy systems?
Wide bandgap technologies, specifically Silicon Carbide (SiC) and Gallium Nitride (GaN), are reshaping power architectures by enabling smaller, more efficient, and higher-performance systems. STMicroelectronics highlights its unmatched physical advantages over silicon, including three times the thermal conductivity and band gap, allowing operation at higher temperatures and voltages with 50% lower power losses and five times higher switching frequency. This translates into smaller heatsinks, lighter systems, and improved reliability, making SiC the preferred technology for high-power, high-efficiency designs in mobility and industrial infrastructure. GaN, on the other hand, offers unique advantages in compact, high-frequency applications, enabling designs that are up to four times smaller, three times lighter, and provide exceptional efficiency and power density. Both technologies are crucial for reducing system-level losses, increasing switching frequency, and creating more compact and efficient systems, directly contributing to lower global emissions.
3. What roles do advanced MCUs and MPUs play in these intelligent power systems?
Advanced microcontrollers (MCUs) and microprocessors (MPUs) serve as the computational engines that drive intelligence and control within modern energy management systems.
STMicroelectronics leverages its STM32 family of 32-bit MCUs, based on the ARM Cortex-M processor, to offer high performance, real-time capabilities, digital signal processing, and low-power operation, simplifying development efforts. For instance, an STM32G4 MCU can simultaneously manage field-oriented control (FOC) sensorless operation and Vienna power factor correction (PFC) in motor control applications for thermal management systems.
NXP offers a truly scalable processing choice, spanning from low-power Kinetics and LPC MCUs to high-performance crossover MCUs, such as the IMX RT family, and multi-core application processors, including the IMX 6, 7, 8, and 9 series. The i.MX 93 and i.MX 94 MPUs are particularly successful in EV charging and energy management, offering application partitioning where high-end processing (e.g., Linux) runs on Arm Cortex A-cores, and time-critical, deterministic functions run on embedded MCU cores (e.g., Arm Cortex M33).
Renesas also utilises ARM-based MCUs, such as the RA6T2, in its high-efficiency power conversion blocks, including 3.6kW bidirectional AC/DC systems. These sophisticated processing units are fundamental to enabling the autonomous, real-time, and secure operation required for next-generation energy solutions.
4. How are BMS being innovated for safety, performance, and efficiency?
Battery management systems (BMS) are crucial for ensuring the safe and efficient operation of rechargeable batteries. Innovations focus on enhanced monitoring, protection, balancing, state estimation, and communication.
MPS offers a comprehensive suite of BMS components, including battery monitors/protectors (analogue front ends) that measure voltage, temperature, and current, along with ‘fuel gauges’ that estimate critical user-level parameters like state-of-Charge (SoC), state-of-health (SoH), and Equivalent Series Resistance (ESR).For cell balancing, MPS champions active balancers over traditional passive methods. Microchip’s BMS solutions include both low-voltage (32V) and modular high-voltage reference designs. Their modular architecture, which can scale to monitor up to 518 battery cells across 50 voltage monitoring boards, supports high-voltage applications up to 1.6-3.2kV. Renesas offers highly integrated hardware and software Fuel Gauge IC (FGIC) solutions, such as their RBMS/FileFish platform, which provides a user-friendly graphical interface and requires no coding for initial setup, supporting up to 10-cell battery packs.
Diodes Incorporated provides key components for battery cell and pack monitoring units, including op amps, current sensors, and a new series of high-speed, high-reliability dual-channel digital isolators for signal isolation.
5. What are the key advancements in power conversion and packaging for higher efficiency and density?
Advancements in power conversion and packaging are pivotal for achieving higher efficiency and power density in energy systems.
STMicroelectronics showcases a 5.5kW AC/DC server power supply that achieves Titanium efficiency requirements with a peak efficiency of 97.5% and a power density of 50 watts per cubic inch, utilising SiC MOSFETs in a totem-pole stage and high-performance MOSFETs in an LLC stage. Diodes Incorporated is expanding its portfolio with dual-channel isolated gate drivers suitable for high-voltage inverter stages in solar inverters, compatible with MOSFETs, IGBTs, GaN, and SiC devices. They are also developing DC/DC buck converter ICs that support higher input voltages up to 100V for auxiliary power supplies.
Nexperia’s 1200V SiC MOSFETs are available in top-side cooled LFPAK packages, allowing direct heatsink attachment to the lid frame for improved heat dissipation and higher power density. The company also provides multimode flyback controllers for efficient power conversion in applications ranging from 30W to 1kW, alongside transformer drivers for isolated power delivery with high efficiency and low noise.
Renesas features an ultra-high efficiency bidirectional AC/DC block using gallium nitride (GaN), capable of 3.6kW PFC and 3.6kW dual active bridge (DAB) conversion, achieving efficiencies around 98.2% for PFC mode and 98.94% for DAB at 1kW. onsemi highlights its FS7 IGBTs for silicon-based solutions, which provide lower VCE_SAT for reduced conduction losses and lower Eoff for improved switching performance, suitable for high-frequency applications. Their EliteSiC M3S MOSFETs and diodes offer superior performance in various packages. onsemi is also advancing top-cooling packaging technology, including the BPAK, allowing for denser device placement and enhancing reliability in harsh environments.
6. Beyond power devices, what other innovations are crucial, particularly in AI, Connectivity, and Energy Harvesting?
Beyond core power devices, several other innovations are proving crucial for the future of intelligent power systems.
In AI and Edge Computing, NXP emphasises that AI at the edge offers a more sustainable and efficient solution compared to cloud processing. The company also envisions AI at the heart of autonomous systems, making better decisions in real-time, enabling applications like demand response forecasting, load shifting, grid optimisation, virtual power plants (VPP), and predictive maintenance, which can reduce breakdowns by up to 70% and maintenance costs by 25%. STMicroelectronics also integrates AI, allowing for nano-edge AI for predictive maintenance in motor control systems, leveraging the remaining CPU load.
Connectivity is another key building block, particularly for the burgeoning smart home and smart building sectors. Matter 1.4, for instance, introduces significant enhancements, including support for energy management devices like solar panels, batteries, heat pumps, and water heaters, facilitating greater automation and efficiency in energy management within smart environments.
Energy Harvesting is gaining traction for very low-power applications. Nexperia illustrated this with its NEH71x0 series highly-integrated energy harvesting PMICs, designed for ultra-low power applications (5µW to 100mW) with up to 95% efficiency.
Finally, Motor Control solutions, as showcased by STMicroelectronics, are fundamental to high-power thermal management systems found in commercial air conditioning, heat pumps, battery energy storage, and AI data centre liquid cooling.
Conclusion
The Avnet Silica webinar series underscored that the transformation in how we generate, store, transfer, and consume energy demands a multifaceted approach. The insights shared by leading semiconductor experts highlight that driving this green revolution requires continuous innovation across a broad spectrum of technologies. Are you ready to jump into the green revolution? Explore how Diodes, Microchip, MPS, Nexperia, NXP, onsemi, Renesas, and STMicroelectronics are driving it in the full webinar series below.
