The Project

The HiPE project is part of the EU Call “HORIZON-CL5-2021-D5-01-02. Nextgen vehicles: Nextgen EV components: Integration of advanced power electronics and associated controls (2ZERO)” and aims to develop a new family of highly energy efficient, cost-effective, modular, compact and integrated wide bandgap (WBG) power electronics solutions for the next generation of battery electric vehicles (BEVs).

The project’s outputs (OUT) will be:

• OUT 1: A scalable and modular family of WBG-based traction inverters
• OUT 2: A family of integrated WBG-based bidirectional on-board chargers (OBCs) and high-to-low voltage (HV/LV) DC/DC converters
• OUT 3: Integrated, fault-tolerant and cost-effective Gallium Nitride (GaN)-based power electronics (PEs) for high-voltage ancillaries and chassis actuators

For this, four experimental Use Cases (UCs) were developed covering the HiPE outputs:

• UC1: Integrated WBG-based traction inverters, HV/LV DC/DC converters and electric motors for high volume passenger vehicle up to 150 kW (OUT 1)
• UC2: Integrated WBG-based traction inverters, HV/LV DC/DC converters and electric motors for light commercial vehicles (OUT 1)
• UC3: Integrated WBG-based on-board chargers and HV/LV DC/DC converters (OUT 2)
• UC4: Integrated and fault-tolerant power electronics for ancillaries and chassis components (OUT 3)

For the experiments, demonstrators will be built incorporating the HiPE innovations. This makes it possible to compare the HiPE innovations with the state-of-the-art technologies regarding power density, energy and cost efficiency as well as size and weight reduction and increased reliability.