Prof. Frede Blaabjerg was employed at ABB-Scandia, Randers, from 1987-1988. During 1988-1992 he was a PhD. student at Aalborg University. He became an Assistant Profes­sor in 1992 at Aalborg University, in 1996 Associate Professor and in 1998 full professor in power electronics and drives the same place. In 2000 he was visiting professor in University of Padova, Italy as well as he became part-time programme research leader at Research Center Risoe in wind turbines. Now he is also Consulting Professor at Zhejiang University, China. In 2006-2010 he was the dean of the faculty of Engineering, Science and Medicine at Aalborg University, Denmark. His research areas are in power electronics, static power converters, ac drives, switched reluctance drives, modelling, characterization of power semiconductor devices and simulation, power quality, wind turbines, custom power systems and green power inverter. He has published 700 publications in those fields. He has been active in national and international research organizations in more than a decade with many chairman positions and in 2007 he became a member of board of the Danish High Technology Foundation and 2008 member of the board of the Danish Strategic Research Council.

He received the 1995 Angelos Award for his contribution in modulation technique and control of electric drives, and an Annual Teacher prize at Aalborg University, also 1995. In 1998 he received the Outstanding Young Power Electronics Engineer Award from the IEEE Power Electronics Society. He has received nine IEEE Prize paper awards during the last ten years (the last in 2008). IEEE Power Electronics Society Honored him with the Service Award in 2009. In 2003 he received the Statoil-prize for his contributions in Power Electronics, in 2004 the Grundfos Prize in acknowledgement of his international scientific research in power electronics, the Director Ib Henriksens Research Prize in 2009 and the EPE-PEMC Council award for 2010. He became IEEE Fellow in 2003.

From 2006 he has been Editor in Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics as well as Distingueshed lecturer for the IEEE Power Electronics Society 2005-2007 and he serves as Distingueshed lecturer for the IEEE Industry Applications Society 2010-2011.

Proposed title : Power Electronics and control for renewable energy systems

The global electrical energy consumption is still rising and there is a steady demand to increase the power capacity. It is expected that it has to be doubled within 20 years. The production, distribution and use of the energy should be as technological efficient as possible and incentives to save energy at the end-user should also be set up. Two major technologies will play important roles to solve the future problems. One is to change the electrical power production sources from the conventional, fossil (and short term) based energy sources to renewable energy resources. An other is to use high efficient power electronics in power generation, power transmission/distribution and end-user application. This presentation will discuss some of the most emerging renewable energy sources, wind energy and photovoltaics, which by means of power electronics are changing character from being a minor energy source to be acting as important power sources in the energy system. Issues like technology development, implementation, power converter technologies, control of the systems, synchronization, anti-islanding, grid codes, system integration and future trends will be addressed in the presentation.