Cistel has been actively conducting research in power engineering, more specifically in power electronics areas, since the inception of the company in 1995. The company has had long-lasting and strong research collaboration with Queen’s University and more recently with York University. The power engineering research mainly focuses in new technology development in the area of power converters for various Information and Communication Technology (ICT) applications. Power converters are extensively used these days in medium to high power level applications. For most of these applications, particularly those of the computer and telecommunication systems, the most desirable features of the converter are high efficiency, high power density, high reliability, and low EMI. The power engineering research is focused on these aspects for practical applications.
Research in renewable energy has been growing at a fast rate in recent years due to economic and environmental concerns. The rapid growth of electricity consumption by ICT is also alarming. In the USA and Europe, the electricity consumption is increasing at a very high rate. Therefore, many companies are now looking into green ICT solutions, especially for data centers and server rooms. Many mobile companies are also considering, and some have already started deploying, new green Base Trans-receiver Stations (BTS) while accommodating new subscribers.
Cistel has started projects which seek to significantly reduce energy consumption due to information technology (IT) while increasing energy generation capability of wind- and solar-based, clean, environmental-friendly, green technologies. This will be accomplished by research and development of new power electronic technologies tailored to telecom and IT Data Centres, and electric vehicles.
Within a time horizon of 3 to 5 years, this project aims at developing the following technologies:
- new, ultra-reliable, wind- and solar-based systems to generate cost-effective green power for both large and small data and telecom centers;
- new frameworks through which power generated by these new systems will be distributed to the centers;
- new advanced system models that will allow for the design of state-of-the-art control, safety, and protection systems that ensure optimal energy generation and distribution; and
- new power conversion systems, which serve as the interface between energy storage devices, energy sources, and electrical equipment, that have dedicated software and intelligent integrated frameworks for information equipment.