Harnessing the Power of Passion
As a lifelong tinkerer and self-proclaimed energy nerd, I’ve always been fascinated by the pioneers pushing the boundaries of renewable energy technology. These visionaries don’t just talk about a greener future – they’re rolling up their sleeves and getting their hands dirty to make it a reality. And trust me, the innovations they’re cooking up in their DIY labs and makeshift workshops are nothing short of mind-blowing.
Recharge, the world’s leading business intelligence source for the renewable energy industry, recently featured the groundbreaking work of two such power pioneers – Dane Henrik Stiesdal and Briton Bill Garrad. These engineering legends received the prestigious Queen Elizabeth Prize, often referred to as the “Nobel Prize of engineering,” for their innovations that have quite literally shaped the modern renewable energy landscape.
But Stiesdal and Garrad aren’t the only ones pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. Across the globe, a new generation of energy enthusiasts is harnessing the power of passion and ingenuity to tackle the world’s most pressing energy challenges. And I’m here to take you on a journey through their workshop of wonders.
Powering Up the Future, One Hack at a Time
Picture this: you’re in a dimly lit garage, the air thick with the scent of solder and the hum of whirring motors. Scattered across the workbench are an assortment of components – from sleek microprocessors to tangled coils of copper wire. In the corner, a 3D printer whirs to life, churning out custom-designed parts with robotic precision.
This is the domain of the modern-day energy pioneers – a motley crew of tinkerers, hackers, and visionaries who are rewriting the rules of renewable technology, one hack at a time.
Take Professors Charles R. Sullivan and Jason Stauth from Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering, for example. These two power electronics gurus have been at the forefront of some of the most cutting-edge advancements in the field, from revolutionizing the way we power our computers to unlocking new heights of efficiency in solar panels.
As Sullivan explains, “Sometimes it’s very nuts-and-bolts practical, and sometimes there’s beautiful theory attached to it. It’s one thing as an engineer when you make something complicated on the bench and it really works – it’s another thing when you walk into a room you’ve never been in before and something you designed is running the lights.”
And that’s the beauty of the power electronics revolution – it’s not just about making things more efficient; it’s about unlocking entirely new realms of possibility. Like Stauth’s work on hybrid-resonant switched capacitor converters, which have dramatically improved the performance of solar power systems by ensuring that no individual cell can drag down the entire array.
Wireless Wonders and Robotic Swarms
But the power pioneers aren’t just revolutionizing the world of renewable energy; they’re also tackling some of the most pressing challenges in consumer electronics, medical devices, and even robotics.
Take Sullivan’s work on wireless power transfer, for example. By rethinking the way energy moves between inductors and capacitors, he and his team at Resonant Link have developed a game-changing technology that could dramatically increase the range of wireless charging for everything from smartphones to implanted medical devices.
“Typically, energy resonates back and forth between inductors and capacitors, losing a little bit of energy as it sloshes back and forth,” Sullivan explains. “That might not matter in a wired electrical system, but can dramatically reduce efficiency when dealing with wireless power.”
But Sullivan and his co-founders have found a way to integrate capacitors directly into the magnetic coil of the inductor, creating a seamless, highly efficient system that could one day free us from the tyranny of tangled charging cables.
And speaking of the future, Stauth is also working on some pretty incredible stuff in the realm of microrobotics. By using power electronics to drive piezoelectric actuators – the tiny components that provide force and movement in small-scale electromechanical systems – his lab has developed a way to recycle the energy used to power these systems, reducing the power required by more than 10 times.
“This allows the system to run off very small batteries or even on-chip micro solar cells,” Stauth says. “The technology could be used to create tiny robots, such as walking or flying mechanical insects, or small-scale actuators that give sensory feedback when a button is pushed on a smartphone or video game controller.”
Electrifying the Future, One Volt at a Time
As impressive as these individual innovations are, the true power of the renewable energy revolution lies in the way these technologies are coming together to transform entire industries and infrastructure.
Take the electric vehicle (EV) revolution, for example. As Sullivan points out, power electronics are going to be absolutely essential in optimizing battery management within EVs and in creating the vast network of charging stations needed to keep these vehicles running.
“Some of those use really high-power levels that require some pretty intensive power electronics using a lot of the kinds of things we have worked on,” Sullivan says. “The technology will be essential in charging vehicles quickly on-demand, but the grid can also work in the other direction, using vehicles to return power to the grid when they are not in use. That option makes the whole system more efficient.”
And as we continue to electrify more and more of our technology, the importance of power electronics in creating a sustainable, renewable-powered future only grows. “The more we electrify technology such as vehicles,” Sullivan explains, “the more we can rely on renewable energy such as wind and solar to power them rather than polluting fossil fuels. But once we are using renewable energy, the variability becomes challenging to control, and we need all the flexibility we can get. Power electronics can give us that control and flexibility we’ll increasingly need.”
So, as I wander through the workshop of these modern-day energy pioneers, I can’t help but feel a sense of awe and excitement. These tinkerers, hackers, and visionaries aren’t just building the future – they’re rewriting the laws of physics, one circuit board and line of code at a time. And who knows, maybe one day, your own DIY energy hack will be the next big thing to shake up the renewable energy landscape.