[HN Gopher] The Solid-State Shift: Reinventing the Transformer f...
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The Solid-State Shift: Reinventing the Transformer for Modern Grids
Author : JumpCrisscross
Score : 48 points
Date : 2025-04-12 18:23 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.powermag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.powermag.com)
| Calwestjobs wrote:
| figure no. 1 is missing green color on HVAC transmission line. i
| do not have ExTwitter and i do not know other way to let them
| know.
|
| it is interesting to think about human made object in terms of
| how much materials they use, for example big old transformer
| contains 2 tons of iron, new solid-state transformer with same
| capacity uses only 300 kg of silicon (Si), 120kg kg of plastics
| and 50 kg of copper.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| E-mail the author spatel@powermag.com [1].
|
| [1] https://www.powermag.com/contact-us/
| mppm wrote:
| Why do solid-state transformers need so much silicon?
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| Because they contain long cascades of these
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulated-
| gate_bipolar_transis... to be arranged into these
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_electronics
| mppm wrote:
| As a sibling comment implies, high-power IGBTs are still
| built from small and thin silicon dies with most of the
| module being heat spreader, insulator, interconnect and
| packaging. Even MW-class modules probably contain a gram or
| so of Si.
| wbraun wrote:
| Where are your weight figures coming from, they are not in the
| linked article.
|
| Packaged semiconductors are going to be more metal interconnect
| / plastic encapsulation / ceramic insulation than silicon by
| weight.
|
| These systems will also have a significant weight fraction in
| magnetic materials, either ferrite ceramics or amorphous
| metals.
|
| Still a huge weight savings, but the weight fractions you are
| giving see off and are missing some important materials.
| hristov wrote:
| This is very interesting and cannot happen fast enough,
| considering the current worldwide transformer shortage.
|
| I have a question for people more familiar with these. What
| exactly happens at the isolation stage. They say it includes a
| high frequency transformer (HFT). But its input and out put is
| DC. And classic transformers operate on AC. So in order to get
| the transformer working, one would have to chop up the incoming
| dc power into a square wave or a sine wave. But what transistors
| can you use to do this, considering you are dealing both with
| very high power and very high frequencies?
| cyberax wrote:
| You need to use nuclear-powered transistors!
|
| No, I'm not joking. For these kinds of voltages, you need to
| use highly homogenous doped silicon, and the only way to
| produce it is to irradiate silicon with neutrons. It transmutes
| some of the silicon atoms into phosphorus:
| https://nrl.mit.edu/facilities/ntds/
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| I assume that if people are going to the trouble to literally
| irradiate the material in order to get what they need, they
| can't get the results by just mixing in phosphorus. Could
| somebody who actually understands this tell me why that is?
| cyberax wrote:
| Because there is no other way to produce homogenous enough
| thick wafers of doped silicon. Other methods rely on
| diffusion from the surface, which is not enough for this
| case.
|
| And doping during crystal growth doesn't produce homogenous
| enough silicon.
| CorrectHorseBat wrote:
| https://www.waferworld.com/post/the-complete-guide-to-
| doping...
|
| It's apparently possible for boron doping.
|
| I think because phosphorus is bigger than silicium you'll
| get too many defects in the crystal, while with the smaller
| boron it is not an issue.
| itcrowd wrote:
| The keyword you are looking for is IGBT (insulated-gate bipolar
| transistor) -- the type of transistor used in such DC-DC
| converters
| hristov wrote:
| I don't think IGBTs can handle frequencies up to "several
| megahertz" as the article says.
| bacon_waffle wrote:
| There are techniques for "stack"ing transistors so that the
| individual swtiching devices see potentials that are within
| spec and much lower than the voltage switched by the overall
| circuit.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Power transistors can be had that can switch up to maybe 3000V
| at the most. But maybe 1200-1500V is more common.
|
| You can stack power transistors to switch higher voltages on
| the primary side. On the secondary side you just need an
| H-bridge. Which can be made up of transistors in parallel.
|
| We've had high power high voltage transistors for about 40
| years now. A lot of this isn't technical but rather economic.
| As the price falls the applications where they are cheaper
| increases. It's notable for instance Toyota started work on
| their hybrid drive in the mid nineties when inverters for
| 10-100 HP motors became cheap enough.
| Animats wrote:
| Then they'll make them "cloud-enabled" and they will be hacked.
|
| It's scary to see protective relays for power systems with
| embedded web servers. "IEEE C37.118 synchrophasor measurement,
| DNP3 Outstation, Modbus TCP/RTU, Telnet, FTP, Simple Network Time
| Protocol (SNTP), built-in web server, and IEC 61850" [1]
|
| [1] https://selinc.com/products/351/#
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| It's fine provided that the link from the equipment that feeds
| it data is optically isolated to only go in one direction.
|
| A public internet connected web server that enables remote
| equipment control is indeed scary.
| Animats wrote:
| > It's fine provided that the link from the equipment that
| feeds it data is optically isolated to only go in one
| direction.
|
| Then people get two of them, one for each direction.[1] Can
| someone explain why this is supposed to be secure? It's
| apparently a real product.
|
| [1] https://owlcyberdefense.com/product/recon-2u/
| sightbroke wrote:
| > Then they'll make them "cloud-enabled" and they will be
| hacked.
|
| It's worse:
|
| https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/01/could-hackers-use-n...
| algo_trader wrote:
| Ex-tesla Drew Baglino is starting a new company Heron for solid
| state transformers
|
| Of topic - dealing with medium voltage e.g. 6kv-10kv - are there
| existing be-spoke solid-state solutions?
|
| e.g. PV/battery 400V converted to 6kv without
| inverter/transformer
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(page generated 2025-04-12 23:01 UTC)