ECSEL: Charging electric vehicles more efficiently

In the European cooperation project Power2Power, which runs until May 2022, 43 partners from eight countries are jointly conducting research and developing innovative power semiconductors with higher power density and energy efficiency. Power semiconductors are required at all stages of energy conversion: in generation, transmission and use.

This is the first time Switzerland has participated in this kind of ECSEL project: BRUSA Elektronik AG and the Advanced Power Semiconductor Laboratory at ETH Zurich are jointly developing a charger for electric vehicles. “At Power2Power, everyone is working on the same problem, but we’re all carrying out our own sub-projects too,” explains Dr Michael Leibl, Predevelopment Team Leader at BRUSA. The international meetings held every couple of months are very important, not least for knowledge sharing: “As experts in power semiconductors, we all face the same challenges.”

The BRUSA charger, which is already being installed in cars and commercial vehicles, aims to achieve even higher efficiency in the future – and with a longer lifespan too. This not only reduces costs, but more efficient semiconductors make a significant contribution to cutting carbon dioxide emissions despite growing worldwide demand for energy.

Collaboration with ETH Zurich as part of the ECSEL project, which Innosuisse is co-financing, is incredibly valuable, says Leibl. “We couldn’t produce a semiconductor physics model like the one provided by ETH Zurich ourselves. It provides much more accurate data and takes less time than if we were to characterise the power semiconductor based on measurements.”