Frede Blaabjerg (S’86–M’88–SM’97–F’03) was with ABB-Scandia, Randers, Denmark, from 1987 to 1988. From 1988 to 1992, he was a Ph.D. Student with Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark. He became an Assistant Professor in 1992, an Associate Professor in 1996, and a Full Professor of power electronics and drives in 1998. He has been a part time Research Leader with the Research Center Risoe in wind turbines. From 2006 to 2010, he was the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Science, and Medicine and became a Visiting Professor with Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, in 2009. His current research interests include power electronics and its applications such as in wind turbines, PV systems, reliability, harmonics and adjustable speed drives.

    He received the 1995 Angelos Award for his contribution in modulation technique and the Annual Teacher Prize at Aalborg University. In 1998, he received the Outstanding Young Power Electronics Engineer Award by the IEEE Power Electronics Society. He has received 14 IEEE Prize Paper Awards and another Prize Paper Award at PELINCEC Poland in 2005. He received the IEEE PELS Distinguished Service Award in 2009, the EPE-PEMC Council Award in 2010 and the IEEE William E. Newell Power Electronics Award 2014. He has received a number of major research awards in Denmark. He was an Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS from 2006 to 2012. He was a Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Power Electronics Society from 2005 to 2007 and for the IEEE Industry Applications Society from 2010 to 2011. He was a Chairman of EPE in 2007 and PEDG, Aalborg, in 2012.

     The power electronics technology is the working horse in the future in the electrical based society. It will control power in electrical power generation, power transmission, distribution and in almost all loads – acting as the intelligent and efficient interface. Further, in many energy autonomous energy systems power electronics is also becoming used to a large extend. The demands to the technology is many-fold. It has to be efficient, reliable, cost efficient, low volume and mass as well as the converter should be intelligent in many applications. This presentation will discuss different power electronic applications with special attention to renewable energy generation and energy efficient systems. Further it will discuss some of the future challenges in the technology like smart integration into grid systems (micro-macro), design for reliability in power electronic systems and harmonic stability in power electronic based power systems.