There is a growing consensus in the electrical industry that appliances and devices in future homes, factories, data centers and vehicles will rely on DC power as their primary supply input. One of the strongest indicators is that most devices, such as refrigerators, heat pumps, induction stoves, have already converted to DC internally to maximize efficiency.
Electric Vehicles are of course natively DC devices, and recently NVIDIA announced a program to convert AI Data Centers to 800VDC infrastructure. In the background, the humble heat pump is demanding more from our power grids than EVs and Data Centers combined – it too is a natively DC device internally.
The reason is simple; DC is a more adaptable, controllable and efficient format for appliances to work with and is compatible with renewable energy and storage resources that are natively DC technologies.
Converting back and forth from our legacy AC grid to DC for modern appliances incurs unnecessary expense and energy loss.
Indeed, the improvements that can be made in AC power conversion devices such as solar inverters is asymptotic – only fractional percentages of improvements can be realized in the future as devices have crossed 99% conversion efficiency.
How can we overcome the momentum set by our legacy AC grid and evolve into a new industrial era based on power electronic devices that work directly with DC power?
One major inhibitor in the evolution to DC is that DC exhibits a stronger electrical arc than AC when a fault is encountered or when a switch is used to interrupt power. Beyond the significant safety concerns around arc faults, there is expensive derating of circuit breakers, switches and relays needed to control DC power.
However, a class of power electronic devices that generate and manage DC power in a new way were adopted by the US National Electric Code in 2023. The technology is called “Fault Managed Power (FMP)” or by the brand name “Digital Electricity” from its inventor, VoltServer.
Digital Electricity networks are formed by power electronic modules called transmitters and receivers. The transmitters send electrical energy to a receiver in discrete “energy packets” that contain electrical energy and data. This is not Power over Ethernet, that operates at up to 57VDC. Current FMP systems operate at up to 450VDC and are designed to power entire buildings rather than small devices.
Ultimately, the receivers are embedded circuits in the power supplies energizing computer servers, induction cooktops, electric vehicles and other appliances. VoltServer, Panduit, EnerSys/Alpha, CommScope, Corning, Cisco are among the companies manufacturing or developing Fault Managed Power components.
Most notably Fault Managed Power conductors, even at hundreds of Volts and thousands of Watts are touch safe, arc-free, and will not exhibit the energy to produce a fire. Data is an inherent part of the “energy packets” exchanged by FMP networks. This provides inherent energy management and control functions to align with DC evolution as well as the rapid increase in digitally enabled devices globally.
Finally, unlike conventional AC, FMP conductors can travel in the same physical channel or cable jacket as fiber optic or copper data lines. Within a data center, this collapses the separate power and data infrastructure to one converged data/power pathway that can be installed and serviced by the same technicians that work with ethernet cables. This results in a more than 80% decrease in the electrical overhead space required, and relief from the safety concerns related to liquid cooling lines in the power space, since even in wet conditions an exposed conductor will not harm a person.
In summary, Fault Managed Power transmitter and receiver power electronics can foster a new era in the global power electronics industry, based on massive FMP-DC networks that extend from renewable energy resources to the devices and appliances that inherently demand DC as their primary source of energy.
