The four-year, $12.4 million award from the DOE’s Office of Basic Energy Sciences, establishes a Research Center led by the University of Arizona, with the CDTR here in Bristol, the only non-US partner involved. Professor Martin Kuball, Director of the CDTR and Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies, says “we are excited to be part of this large US funded activity to enable the technology needed for so-called smart grids and helping our society to achieve zero carbon emission”. The Center will employ creative, multi-disciplinary scientific teams to tackle the toughest scientific challenges preventing advances in energy technologies, as well as investigating fundamental questions about ultra-wide bandgap semiconductors.

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Picture credit: Karsten Wuerth@Unsplash

Ultra-wide bandgap semiconductors are for example aluminium nitride, boron nitride or diamond, which possess extraordinary physical and electrical properties. Devices constructed from them can operate at higher temperatures, voltages and frequencies than Silicon (Si), making them significantly more powerful and energy efficient than conventionally used Si-based power electronics. Through the use of ultra-wide bandgap materials, power substations could potentially shrink a hundredfold — to virtually the size of a suitcase — saving space and increasing the reliability of the grid. Wide band gap materials can also enable better integration of renewable energy sources into any electricity grid. While electricity grids traditionally only delivered power in one direction — from power plants to consumers — today’s grids must be flexible, giving and taking power as required. Renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power supply energy under the right conditions, but their cells and batteries require recharging when there is not enough wind or sun. A “smart grid” to meet these multidirectional demands is within reach, thanks to the research that the CDTR is doing.