2638 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 60, NO. 7, JULY 2013 Global Energy Scenario and Impact of Power Electronics in 21st Century Bimal K. Bose, Life Fellow, IEEE Abstract—Power electronics technology has gained signifi- cant maturity after several decades of dynamic evolution of power semiconductor devices, converters, pulse width modulation (PWM) techniques, electrical machines, motor drives, advanced control, and simulation techniques. According to the estimate of the Electric Power Research Institute, roughly 70% of electrical energy in the USA now flows through power electronics, which will eventually grow to 100%. In the 21st century, we expect to see the tremendous impact of power electronics not only in global industrialization and general energy systems, but also in energy saving, renewable energy systems, and electric/hybrid vehicles. The resulting impact in mitigating climate change problems is expected to be enormous. This paper, in the beginning, will discuss the global energy scenario, climate change problems, and the methods of their mitigation. Then, it will discuss the impact of power electronics in energy saving, renewable energy systems, bulk energy storage, and electric/hybrid vehicles. Finally, it will review several example applications before coming to conclusion and future prognosis. Index Terms—Climate change, electric/hybrid vehicles, energy, energy storage, future of power electronics, global warming, motor drives, power electronics, renewable energy systems. I. I NTRODUCTION I T IS well known that power electronics is based on high efficiency and fast-switching silicon power semiconductor switches, such as diode, thyristor, triac, gate turn-off thyris- tor (GTO), power MOSFET, insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT), and integrated gate-commutated thyristor (IGCT), and their applications include dc and ac regulated power supplies, uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems, electrochemical processes (such as electroplating, electrolysis, anodizing, and metal refining), heating and lighting control, electronic weld- ing, power line static volt ampere reactive (VAR) compensators [SVC, static var generator, or static synchronous compensator (STATCOM)] and flexible ac transmission systems (FACTS), active harmonic filters (AHFs), HVdc systems, photovoltaic (PV) and fuel cell (FC) converters, dc and ac circuit break- ers, high-frequency heating, energy storage, and dc/ac motor drives. Motor drive area may include applications in comput- ers and peripherals, solid-state motor starters, transportation Manuscript received October 17, 2011; revised January 3, 2012 and March 28, 2012; accepted May 25, 2012. Date of publication June 8, 2012; date of current version February 28, 2013. This paper was presented in part as an invited keynote address in Qatar Workshop on Power Electronics in Industrial Applications and Renewable Energy (PEIA2011), Doha, November 3–4, 2011. The Workshop was sponsored by the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society. The author is with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996-2100 USA (e-mail: bbose@utk.edu). Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIE.2012.2203771 systems, home appliances, paper and textile mills, pumps and compressors, rolling and cement mills, machine tools and robotics, variable-speed constant-frequency systems, etc. The widespread applications of power electronics in global industri- alization are bringing a kind of industrial revolution in the 21st century which has been somewhat unprecedented in history. We have already seen how computer, communication, and infor- mation technology advancements have turned geographically remote countries as close neighbors. In particular, the Internet communication has brought revolution in our society, bringing the whole world close together into a global village. Truly, we now live in a global society, where the nations in the world are being increasingly interdependent. What happens today in India or Egypt, for example, affects the USA and vice versa. In the present trend, it is expected that future wars in the world will be fought in economic front rather than in military front. In the global marketplace, free from trade barriers, all the nations in the world will face fierce industrial competitiveness for survival and prosperity of living standard. In such an environment, power electronics with motion control will play a dominant role in the 21st century. Moreover, as the energy price increases and environmental regulations are tightened, power electronics applications will spread in every corner of industrial, commercial, residential, transportation, aerospace, military, and utility systems. The role of power electronics in this era will be as important as that of computers, communication, and information technologies, if not more. It may be relevant to mention here that the author recently published two survey papers [1], [2] of which the first paper has no relevance to the content of this paper. This paper is comprehensive and mainly deals with the discussion of energy systems. The technology advancement and trends are briefly reviewed in the “Future Scenario” of Section VI which can be considered as supplementary to the second paper [2]. II. ENERGY SCENARIO Let us discuss, in the beginning, with the global energy scenario [6]–[9]. We have come a long way in the history of our industrial civilization. Prior to industrial revolution, which started in 1785, we were essentially in the muscle age when our energy primarily came from human and animal muscles. In those days, world population was small, life was simple and unsophisticated, and the environment was relatively clean. The mechanical age, or the age of steam and heat engines, started with industrial revolution. Then, the electrical age started in the late nineteenth century by the commercial availability of electricity and, particularly, by the invention of commercial 0278-0046/$31.00 © 2012 IEEE