Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Electricity Storage Programme, which I proposed and drafted for
Europe's Joint Research Centre, was adopted already in 1997,
with micro- and power electronics as key enabler for integration
and coordination of the diversity of components. With the new
challenges in engineering research, I could not resist to come back
to control engineering reality, returning as professor to Kassel,
soon being ofered to build up the energy systems and control
engineering activities for Luxembourg's new university and the
Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust.
20.4
Defending Progress
In between, Germany's wind converter manufacturing had
considerably grown, facing a major market, and back from
Europe's Directorate General for Research, I was supporting their
association to protect their innovations, especially with regard to the
intellectual properties rights. These turned out to be an important
competition issue, non-European companies massively trying to
get into the European market. Initiated and coordinated by REpower,
in the core of the discussions were the advanced control methods
joining micro- and power electronics with their, in between,
considerable cost degressions. Now, more than two decades later,
the GROWIAN power conditioning and control technology from
Braunschweig was dominating with its capabilities of smooth
integration and even support of the electricity grid. For control
of the flexible rotorfield in the proper way to feed in active and
reactive power into the 50 Hz grid, a diversity of variants had
emerged.
Counteracting a patent ofensive of a large company from
outside Europe, it became necessary to clarify the more formal
nature of their numerous applications and solidify the previous
state of art towards the European Patent Office. It took some
profound literature and patent research and a number of difficult
discussions with developers, component manufactures and patent
attorneys. Otherwise the markets could have been dominated
by large companies getting patents granted for a technology
that had long been known or for which the original patents
in micro- and power electronics fields had already expired.
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