Power electronics technology has gone through dynamic transformation in the last decades. Fortunately, we are now living in the age of industrial regeneration when not only power electronics but also computers, communication, information, and transportation technologies are progressing speedily. The advancement of these technologies has brought the geographically remote areas in the world closer day by day. Currently, its solicitations are speedily expanding in industrial, commercial, residential, transportation, utility, aerospace, and military environments primarily due to reduction of cost, size, and development of performance. In the worldwide industrial automation, energy conservation, and environmental pollution control trends of the 21st century, the widespread impact of power electronics is unavoidable. It appears that the role of power electronics on our society in the future will tend to be as important and versatile as that of information technology today.

Power Electronics covers the innovative developments in power electronics, few applications of power electronics, the importance of power electronics, the trends in power electronics, and the trends in power semiconductor devices and the challenges in power electronics. Furthermore, the recent advances of power semiconductor devices, converters, variable-frequency AC drives, and advanced control and estimation techniques will be reviewed briefly. During the last years there was a broad development in the field of power electronics which led to more efficient systems and reduction of the cost per installed kW. The inverters became more efficient and reached efficiencies in excess of 98%, while commercial solar modules reached almost 17% efficiency. Also, the wind turbines use inverters of improved efficiency, reliability and regulation capabilities. In this book the recent trends of power electronics topologies used in such systems are also presented.