Lingling Fan
This year, we welcome nine new members to the editorial board of IEEE Electrification Magazine. They are Marcelo Godoy Simões (University of Vaasa, Finland); Xiao-Ping Zhang (University of Birmingham, U.K.); Caisheng Wang (Wayne State University, USA); Farrokh Rahimi (Open Access Technology International, USA); Hiva Nasiri (K&A Engineering Consulting, USA); Fabio D’Agostino (University of Genova, Italy); Jahangir Khan (BC Hydro, Canada); Bo Yang (Hitachi America, USA); and Ying Xue (South China University of Technology, China). We appreciate all of the retiring associate editors whose efforts over the years contributed to the growth of IEEE Electrification Magazine.
This issue launches a dedicated column to technology history by Prof. Marcelo Godoy Simões: “The Elektron Whisperer” (TEW). Along with the logo of the goddess Minerva, TEW will meet readers quarterly. In this issue, Prof. Simões shares with us his wonder about technologies and leads us to visit the early history of induction motor drives. Eventually, he shows us how technologies (e.g., cycloconverters, insulated-gate bipolar transistor inverters, pulsewidth modulation, volt/hertz control, vector control, and digital signal processors boards from Texas Instruments), developed over decades by many brilliant engineers and scientists, led to the booming industry of variable-speed motor drives, wind turbines, smart grids, and more.
It is always great to understand history to better appreciate technologies. Poincaré, in his book Science and Method, stated firmly that “Discovery is discernment, selection.” Poincaré followed by describing the process of discovery. Many times, ideas came through laborious work and then moments of sudden illumination. The process is so subtle and delicate that Poincaré wrote
The real work of the discoverer consists in choosing between these combinations with a view to eliminating those that are useless, or rather not giving himself the trouble of making them at all. The rules which must guide this choice are extremely subtle and delicate, and it is practically impossible to state them in precise language; they must be felt rather than formulated. Under these conditions, how can we imagine a sieve capable of applying them mechanically?
Reading the words of more than 100 years ago, one cannot help but replace “a sieve” with “ChatGPT” and chuckle.
Many times, when we read textbooks, we take things for granted. Even the classic textbooks on machines omit mentioning how those nice things were developed, how many people have devoted themselves to coming up with those brilliant ideas and efficient and powerful equipment and to further figuring out analysis methods. Take the example of the steady-state phasor-impedance circuit of an induction machine. This elegant and super-concise circuit integrates the electric circuits in the stator and the rotor, an electromagnetic field, and motion altogether. In Fitzgerald’s book Electric Machinery, several pages were devoted to the derivation of this circuit. On the other hand, we do not spot the name of Charles P. Steinmetz in the text. According to Charles P. Steinmetz and the Development of Electrical Engineering Science by R. Kline, it took tremendous effort for Steinmetz to develop such a circuit.
TEW is doing us a great favor by not taking things for granted. For every technological advancement, there were people working behind it. In TEW, we hear Prof. Simões’s personal voice. Reading it immediately connects us with the author. We see through the author’s eyes and feel the excitement of learning about vector control of induction motor drives, and we learn a great deal from this article. All those names, MacMurray, Lipo, Bose, and Blaschke, are now weaved into this story of the making of digital controlled induction machine drives. Indeed, Prof. Simões is a great storyteller.
This issue consists of four feature articles from regular submissions and four feature articles from invitations—thanks to our associate editor, Prof. David Gao of the University of Denver, CO, USA. Among them, five articles focus on various technologies relevant to electric vehicles (EVs), including state policies on EVs in the United States, heavy-duty excavators using motor drives, lithium-ion batteries for EVs, sensing and perception technology (an area very important to safety), and race car inverters. The remaining three articles cover the following topics: community electrification in Madagascar, electrification of marine power systems, and superharmonic sensing technology for microgrids.
The first article, “Incentivizing Electric Vehicle Adoption through State and Federal Policies,” by Joshua Sabata and coauthors from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, gives a timely picture of the current incentivizing policies of EV adoption across the states in the United States. The second article is from SINTEF Norway. Marianne Kjendseth Wiik and coauthors present the technical basis as well as the environmental and economic performance results for the electrification of 8.5-ton, 17.5-ton, and 38-ton electric excavators in Norway compared to their diesel equivalents. In the third article, Ahmad A. Pesaran, chief energy storage engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the United States, discusses the progress in lithium-ion batteries and their future potential in terms of energy density, life, safety, and extremely fast charge as well as material sourcing, supply chain, and end-of-lifecycle management.
The fourth article, by Julian Stähler and coauthors from the Technical University of Applied Sciences in Augsburg, Germany, and the University of Denver, addresses an important topic highly relevant to safety: high-performance perception technology for smart autonomous EVs. Particularly, the authors focus on using machine learning algorithms for the detection and classification of objects, free space, and lanes. In the fifth article, Carsten Markgraf and coauthors present a collaborative student-oriented project on race car inverter development. This collaboration is between the University of Denver and the Technical University of Applied Sciences in Augsburg, Germany.
In the sixth article, Lucas Richard and coauthors from Madagascar and France describe a rural electrification project initiative in Madagascar that led to the success of installing more than 1,500 nanogrids. The seventh article, by Sohaib Qazi and coauthors from The Netherlands and the United Kingdom, examines a multitude of unique challenges of maritime electrification onboard and at the ports. The article shows that power electronics is one of the key enabling technologies in tackling these challenges and thereby creating safe, reliable, and emission-free maritime transport. In the eighth article, Mattewos Tefferi and coauthors from G&W, Powerside, and Ameren present the use of a power quality analyzer paired with high-performance sensors capable of capturing supraharmonics.
We hope you enjoy this issue. We would like to acknowledge the contributing authors, the magazine’s senior publications administrator Randi E. Scholnick-Philippidis, and the production manager Christie Inman for their efforts in producing this issue.
M. G. Simões, “A concise history of induction motor drives—Part 1,” IEEE Electrific. Mag., vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 5–11, Jun. 2023, doi: 10.1109/MELE.2023.3264888.
J. Sabata, S. Shom, A. Almaghrebi, A. McCollister, and M. Alahmad, “Incentivizing electric vehicle adoption through state and federal policies: Reviewing influential policies,” IEEE Electrific. Mag., vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 12–23, Jun. 2023, doi: 10.1109/MELE.2023.3264889.
M. K. Wiik, K. Fjellheim, J. A. Suul, and K. Azrague, “Electrification of excavators: Electrical configurations, carbon footprint, and cost assessment of retrofit solutions,” IEEE Electrific. Mag., vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 24–34, Jun. 2023, doi: 10.1109/MELE.2023.3264898.
A. A. Pesaran, “Lithium-ion battery technologies for electric vehicles: Progress and challenges,” IEEE Electrific. Mag., vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 35–43, Jun. 2023, doi: 10.1109/MELE.2023.3264919.
J. Stähler, C. Markgraf, M. Pechinger, and D. W. Gao, “High-performance perception: A camera-based approach for smart autonomous electric vehicles in smart cities,” IEEE Electrific. Mag., vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 44–51, Jun. 2023, doi: 10.1109/MELE.2023.3264920.
C. Markgraf, L. Gacy, S. Leitenmaier, D. Lengerer, B. Schwartz, and D. W. Gao, “Autonomous electric race car inverter development: Revving up the future with resource efficient drive technology,” IEEE Electrific. Mag., vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 52–61, Jun. 2023, doi: 10.1109/MELE.2023.3264921.
L. Richard, N. Saincy, N. Le Saux, D. Frey, M.-C. Alvarez-Herault, and B. Raison, “A new electrification model to end energy poverty: An example from a novel rural electrification approach in Madagascar,” IEEE Electrific. Mag., vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 62–73, Jun. 2023, doi: 10.1109/MELE.2023.3264922.
S. Qazi et al., “Powering maritime: Challenges and prospects in ship electrification,” IEEE Electrific. Mag., vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 74–87, Jun. 2023, doi: 10.1109/MELE.2023.3264926.
M. Tefferi, N. Nakamura, B. Barnes, and N. Uzelac, “Supraharmonic measurements in distributed energy resources: Power quality observations in a microgrid,” IEEE Electrific. Mag., vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 88–96, Jun. 2023, doi: 10.1109/MELE.2023.3264929.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MELE.2023.3264887
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