Johan Driesen - KU Leuven / EnergyVille (Academia) & Erik Van Mossevelde - Niko (Industry)

The adoption of alternating current (AC) in the early 20th century led to the gradual disappearance of direct current (DC) technologies from our daily lives. In ICT systems and led-lighting low-voltage DC was back for some time already. However, with the increasing popularity of renewable energy sources, energy storage systems and electrical vehicles, DC is making a comeback at a much wider scale. 

DC offers several advantages over AC, such as higher energy efficiency, easier integration with renewable energy sources and storage, and the ability for power electronic devices to directly interface without the need for AC/DC converters, yielding a potentially significant reduction in hardware investments and increase of reliability. 

This presentation will give you an overview of existing and future DC infrastructure solutions and applications in our living environment with focus on the office building and residential houses. The technical challenges and the role of power electronics will be addressed and illustrated with the outcomes of recent R&D and pilot projects.