I. Characteristics of Chinese Enterprises
In China, over the past two decades of reform and opening up, a trend has emerged: regardless of the industry, if it's perceived to have a good market outlook and high short-term profits, everyone's attention will inevitably focus on that industry, and everyone will jump on the bandwagon. This was most evident in the Chinese color TV, refrigerator, and VCD industries in the past.
The metallurgical, electrolytic aluminum, and power plant industries are the most typical examples of this new trend, with both state-owned and private enterprises involved. The result is that, in a very short time, production will far exceed demand. According to economic principles, a 20-30% over-demand ratio is beneficial for enterprise competition and development, while a 100-200% over-demand ratio is undoubtedly a disaster for the industry.
II. Current Market Situation
Based on China's economic development, the four major issues currently hindering its growth are oil, electricity, coal, and transportation. Coal-transportation-electricity form a mutually constraining and coordinated economic chain. Therefore, in the coming years, energy conservation, electricity saving, and environmental protection will be prioritized by the government and, more importantly, by enterprises. For industries such as thermal power, metallurgy, and petrochemicals, electricity saving is also coal saving, environmental protection, and an effective way to reduce costs. Thus, a wave of energy conservation is gradually emerging, providing a market opportunity for the medium and high voltage frequency converter manufacturing industry (including imported and domestic products). Consequently, many companies are researching, developing, and pilot-producing medium-voltage variable frequency drives.
III. Characteristics of the Power Electronics Industry
The lack of domestically produced advanced power electronic devices has severely hampered the development of China's power electronics industry, with imported products dominating over 90% of the market. The power electronics industry has the following characteristics: China's power semiconductor devices are still largely based on power diodes, thyristors, and GTOs, with little significant development in recent years. Furthermore, widely used power electronic devices such as MOSFETs, IGBTs, and IGCTs are entirely dependent on imports.
(1) The accumulation of practical experience for researchers in the power electronics industry is more important than anything else. If we think that a few master’s students and doctoral students can quickly develop and perfect the product, then there would be more than one Siemens, one Toshiba, one GE, and one AB in the world. Therefore, the accumulation of experience in processes, systems, and technologies is very important.
(2) High technical content: Power electronics is a new interdisciplinary field that includes three major electrical engineering technologies: power, electronics, and control. With the development of technology, it is also closely related to many fields such as modern control theory, materials science, electrical engineering, and microelectronics technology.
(3) In the power electronics industry, the lower the power and voltage, the more manufacturers there are; the higher the power and voltage, the fewer manufacturers there are. IV. High Development Costs
The development of power electronic products, especially high-power products, requires a large number of high-precision equipment and instruments. Furthermore, because the internal microscopic phenomena of power semiconductor devices (IGBTs) cannot be observed using conventional methods, sudden failures frequently occur during application. Only through continuous exploration and gradual mastery of their patterns can they be used effectively, and this accumulation of experience requires substantial financial investment. Currently, some domestically produced medium-voltage frequency converters still frequently experience IGBT explosions during use.
