On November 27th, the 1st IET International Workshop on IGCT and Applications was opened online as scheduled, and attended by about 50 industry experts, university teachers and students, and engineering technicians from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Switzerland, China and other countries. This Workshop is hosted by Tsinghua University and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), and organized by DC Research Center (DC Center) of Energy Internet Research Institute of Tsinghua University. At the Workshop, participants shared the latest research achievements and technological progress, exchanged problems encountered in academic research and engineering applications, and jointly discussed the development trends and challenges of IGCT technology. This Workshop is the first international conference focusing on Integrated Gate-Commutated Thyristor (IGCT) technology and applications.

The 1st IET International Workshop on IGCT and Applications

As a new type of power electronic device, IGCT has been widely used in industrial frequency conversion and speed regulation, wind power grid incorporation, rail transit and other fields with its advantages of large capacity, high reliability, low loss and low cost since its birth in 1997. In recent years, driven by new energy transmission and large-scale energy storage, DC power networks have been developing rapidly in countries around the world. As the core component of the key equipment of DC backbone network, high-voltage and high-capacity semiconductor devices have become the focus of academic research and industrial application, which also brings new opportunities and broad prospects for the application of IGCT in the field of DC power grid. On this occasion, Tsinghua University and IET organized this online workshop and invited 9 representative international experts in this field to share and exchange their ideas.

Professor Zeng Rong of Tsinghua University delivered a welcome speech, and Associate Professor Zhao Biao presided over the workshop.

At the beginning of the workshop, Zeng Rong, Professor of EEA, Tsinghua University and Director of the DC Center, delivered a welcome speech, introduced the situation of the center, and expounded the future application concept of IGCT.

The session of keynote reports was presided over by Zhao Biao, Associate Professor of EEA, Tsinghua University and Director of the DC Center Power Conversion Research Office.

Keynote reports by experts

Professor Rik W. De Doncker from RWTH Aachen University in Germany gave a report entitled "Technology roadmap of gate turn-off thyristor devices" and introduced the technical development route of gate turn-off thyristor devices.

Two experts from Hitachi ABB Power Grid Company, Christian Winter and Umamaheswara Vemulapati, gave reports entitled "Innovative IGCT offerings from Hitachi ABB Power Grids" and "A qualitative investigation of IGCTs in current source inverters for high current applications" respectively, and introduced the research progress of Hitachi ABB in IGCT devices and applications respectively.

Mr. Eric I. Carroll, from the French consulting company EIC, who has made outstanding contributions to the development and promotion of IGCT, made a report entitled "Clamp Circuit Options for IGCT Circuit Enhancement" and put forward the optimization method of IGCT clamping circuit.

Professor Drazen Dujic from Lobsang Federal Institute of Technology made a report entitled "Soft-Switching Resonant conversion with IGCTs", which introduced the application prospect and problems of IGCT in DC transformers.

Professor Alex Q. Huang from the University of Texas at Austin gave a report entitled "From Si to SiC Thyristor Technology" and introduced the silicon carbide thyristor technology.

Associate Professor Yu Zhanqing from Tsinghua University gave a report entitled "Application of IGCT in DC Grid" and introduced the performance of customized IGCT-Plus devices for DC power grid jointly developed by Tsinghua University and Zhuzhou CRRC Times, and its current application in key equipment such as converter valves, DC circuit breakers, DC energy dissipation devices and so on in the DC power grid.

Cao Guohong, the deputy general manager of Zhuzhou CRRC Times Semiconductor Co., Ltd. gave a report entitled "IGCT Development of CRRC" and introduced the latest research progress of IGCT devices in CRRC and Tsinghua University.

Dr. Zheng Dapeng from Shenzhen Hopewind Electric Co., Ltd. gave a report entitled "IGCT Based Multi-level Converter and Its Application", and introduced the research and development and application of multi-level converter based on IGCT in Hopewind Electric.

Group photo of the attendees

After the keynote reports, the participants had an in-depth discussion and exchange on such topics as "the advantages and disadvantages of the application of IGCT in the HV field" and "the future development trend and challenge of IGCT devices and applications", and answered the questions raised by the other participants.

Experts at the Workshop agreed that with the rapid development of offshore wind power and other new energy generation and flexible AC / DC power transmission and distribution systems, and the continuous improvement of voltage and capacity of power electronic systems, IGCT will show more superior performance in high-power low-frequency application scenarios and play an important role in promoting the clean transformation of energy structure and the revolution of energy consumption.