The growth of humanity, from less than 2 billion in the end of the 19th century to over 7 billion in the beginning of the 21st century is strongly related to our ability to use energy. The use of fossile energy cause severe problems with the environment and is truly challenging the future of man kind. We strongly need I) to reduce our use of energy and II) to transfer from fossil and probably nuclear to renewable energy sources.

This is where Power Electronics is important. Independent of primary energy source, a lot of our use of energy involves electric energy technology. Manufacturing, transport, lighting, ventilation, heating, electricity transmission, physics research, ... all involve one or several steps where the energy is converted to electricity before finally consumed. In addition, renewable energy sources like wind, wave and solar are entirely dependent on conversion of the primary energy source to electricity as an intermediate state before finally consumed.

In most, if not all, of these applications the energy is converted by means of switching power electronics converters built by power semiconductors and controlled in real time by very fast control systems. The development of modern power electronics started half a century ago and is today developing faster than ever before. As an engineer with ambitions to work with, or just understand the fundaments of, electric energy conversion and control, it is important t study power electronics - it is involved "everywhere" in electric energy flow control.

This course is given to provide a deep understanding of the technologies involved, the requirements and limitations, the opportunities and to give the understanding and tools to help those who want to contribute to the development.

The course is built on lectures, exercises and labs.  There are 6 labs that all are prepared within the Matlab/Simulink environment such that you by the computer get a chance to understand the dynamic behavior that you will se on instruments in the lab.