I-Corps: Solid State Circuit Breakers Technology to Market

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a technology that addresses the limitations of current circuit breakers, at a competitive cost. The technology facilitates renewable energy integration by direct current power systems and helps to accelerate the development of the electrification industry to cope with the world-wide effort in minimizing carbon footprints.

The global circuit breaker market has been reported as $16.04 billion in 2019 and is estimated to reach $25.85 billion in the US by 2027. Among this market, direct current circuit breakers are estimated to grow at an annual rate of 6.54% from 2019 to 2024. The pain points of the current circuit breaker technology include, but are not limited to, slow operation, low power density, low flexibility and reliability, no scalability, and limited monitoring and controlling functions.

In addition to these drawbacks, the existing circuit breaker technology cannot respond to the urgent needs of emerging electrified technologies, e.g., aerospace, marine, and electric vehicle applications.

This I-Corps project is based on the development of emerging solid state circuit breaker technologies to isolate fault in an electric system. The technology aims to utilize state-of-the-art, wide bandgap, solid-state devices to increase compactness, enhance efficiency, and operate faster. The solution includes both software and hardware which can be adjusted for various applications with different electrical power.

The combinations of performance, design simplicity, and low-price make this technology broadly accessible and manageable for various applications. The technology provides scalability by presenting a modular structure. This feature helps to push up power limitation of the current technology.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.