INSPIRE

INSPIRE targets the development and demonstration of breakthrough solar inverter technologies and a portfolio of transferable innovations that will help move advanced PV systems from research to real-world deployment across Europe. Its key objectives include:

• Deliver and demonstrate a next-generation low voltage grid-interactive inverter with increased efficiency, reduced cost, higher reliability, and improved grid interaction functionalities
• Deliver and demonstrate the first-of-a-kind 3 kV 3 MVA PV inverter
• Deliver a proven suite of innovations that will effectively support the improvement of future novel solar inverters beyond the INSPIRE low and medium-voltage ones
• Effectively contribute to future-oriented cyber-physical resilience

To realize these ambitions, the project partners will develop and validate a broad portfolio of hardware, firmware, and system-level innovations, including partial power converters with Dual Bus topology, medium-voltage PV inverter technologies with SiC modules, topology-optimised heat sink design, hybrid EMI/EMC filters with active noise cancellation, solar analytics for PV plant operations, grid-forming control, system coordination and grid interaction, design for reliability with availability-based indices, health and condition monitoring with stress steering, hardware-level cyber-physical protection of inverters, and cybersecurity-oriented firmware.

SAL contributes to INSPIRE through adaptive SiC damage modelling using module data, FEM crack propagation, damage accumulation, Kalman-based junction temperature estimation with ageing, and Model-in-the-Loop design support. SAL also works on GaN junction temperature measurement, GaN gate drive development, lifetime model implementation on embedded systems, hybrid filter development and validation, multi-objective optimisation using LCA and mission-profile-to-stress mapping, as well as health and condition monitoring, sustainability, impact assessment, and cybersecurity activities.

• Title: INSPIRE - Inverter Systems for Power Integration and Resilient Energy systems
• Program:  Horizon Europe
• Funding Agency: EU
• Project Duration: 42 Months