Data centers live and die by one number: uptime. Before discussing megawatts, efficiencies, or power architectures, one must understand what the industry actually demands from its power infrastructure. The Uptime Institute’s Tier Classification System has become the de facto benchmark, ranging from Tier 1, which tolerates up to 28 hours of downtime per year, to…
If you’ve been following my work, you know I’ve been writing about Solid State Transformers (SSTs) for years. In my article on DC microgrids, I described how “solid-state transformers (SSTs) are composed of modular, multi-stage elements that can be disconnected in the event of a fault” and praised their ability to “control or limit short-circuit…
Decarbonizing our energy systems hinges on one fundamental principle: electrification. In order to shift away from fossil fuels, renewables are the cornerstone of this transition, with nuclear serving as a valuable bridge during the transformation. But simply generating clean energy isn’t enough; we need intelligent, flexible distribution networks capable of managing variable sources and diverse…
Trying out with the team some LLM working locally (useful for treating confidential material) we asked to write a ballad on Grid Forming Converters in the style of Neil Young, Julien Clerc et Gigi D’Alessio. Gigi D’Alessio. Very insightful results! Results obtained with LM Studio 0.3.3.0, model qwen3-4b-thinking-2507original prompt was “Please write a Neil Young…
In a previous article that discussed the need for intermediate energy buffering in EV charging stations, we stated the need for several types of electrical intermediate storage. Depending on the needs to be covered, namely micropeaks, peak shaving, daily storage, and longer timeframes, different solutions appear in the picture, and none of them can cover…
While reading this short article, I suggest listening to the legendary song Thunderstruck by the legendary hard rock band AC/DC (although High Voltage might be more appropriate for the article given its title, the intro riff of Thunderstruck is by far the best the band has ever produced, and what’s more, the lyrics mention being…
During an ECPE conference on medium power that I had the opportunity to attend in Freiburg, Germany, we were able to visit the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE. We discussed future European regulations on carbon emissions and individual transportation. There, a new reality bacame clear to me: if the whole of Europe switches…
1st July 2025, I am thrilled to start this new life chapter as researcher and teacher in Power Electronics at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland (HES-SO) – School of Engineering and Management Vaud (HEIG-VD), in Yverdon-les-Bains Switzerland. I work litterally a stone’s throw from my hometown Ste-Croix, home of music automatons…
In 2014 Daniel Siemaszko founded PESC-CH, an independent consultancy company for power electronics and systems based in Switzerland. Main interestests where related to modular converters for intermediate storage and DC grid breaking energy recovery. In 2025, PESC evolved towards a research initiative for content sharing on Power Electronics and related systems. Tutorials and opinion related…
System Level Modeling and Simulation of MVDC Microgrids featuring Solid State Transformers Tutorial given by Daniel Siemaszko on 5th August at IEEE ICDCM 2024, Columbia SC LINK to presentationLINK to simulation files Python scripts calling a Simba.io model for running an MVDC model
