Standards in Power Electronics: Insight on handling current standards

Power electronics is a rapidly growing field, with an accelerating pace of technological change. This combination presents a challenge for industry professionals to stay up to date on the regulatory and standards requirements and the standards bodies (such as the IEEE) to ensure that the published standards are met. Standards are vitally important for confirming that products conform to the latest levels of functional interoperability, performance, safety, and reliability. This is essential at all levels from consumer products such as electric toothbrushes to cars and aircraft. The plethora of standards and regulatory bodies can lead to confusion, ignorance, and inadvertent problems that could be averted if designers and product engineers have a greater awareness of not only the standards required but a better idea of how to interpret and implement them. This article is intended to assist power electronics engineers in navigating these difficult and complex issues and to provide insight on how best to handle the use of standards. I use a number of commonly asked questions that practicing engineers have posed during my standards role within the IEEE Power Electronics Society (PELS). It is my hope that the answers are constructive and useful. In addition, I discuss significant activities aimed at establishing a road map for wide-bandgap (WBG) power semiconductors, which are not directly standards as such but are closely related to a number of standards activities.