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Comment by algo_trader | Hacker News Reader

What's the top V these cretins will reach? Can they reach 10-20kV? Can they be "stacked" ?

IIUC the real bottleneck is in transmission (>50kv) not distribution transformers.

It seems like solid-state transformers aren't entirely stupid - they can be smaller and lighter and control phase angle (to control power flow direction and power factor) like HVDC connections do. But their efficiency is less than the 98-99% of the traditional big hunks of copper and steel, so until that improves, they likely won't see widespread use.

Yeah, it's all stacking. Lots and lots and lots of IGBT in series. Now though they have pretty advanced gate control, to build "Modular Multi-Level Converter (MMC)", switching various groups of modules on and off to approximate a sine wave. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVDC_converter#Modular_Multi-L...

Fun facts: the Trans-Bay Cable is credited by wikipedia at least as the first MMC implementation. Started ~2003, permitted 2007, completed 2010, the cable is 53 miles, and runs at 230kV, providing reliable power to SF; a response to a critical 1998 power outage when two local power plants shut down (since decomissioned for good) and the grid failed to carry the load. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_Bay_Cable

Coincidentaly, the original patent expired in 2003, so uh, interest may have started rising recently. None the less, thanks Rainer Marquardt and Anton Lesnicar for your MMC invention. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1304403

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