Expand Power Technologies uses high-frequency power electronics to create PowerGuard, an ultra-compact, smart transformer with increased controllability and safety monitoring. PowerGuard can be manufactured domestically with shortened lead times, providing solutions to the transformer shortage that plagues utilities while enabling new distribution loads in previously prohibitive locations.
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Carla Pinzón
Carla Pinzón is the founder and CEO of Expand Power Technologies, a grid modernization venture building novel compact transformers. She was previously a lead power electronics engineer at Sonos and a Ph.D. candidate at Stanford focused on wide-bandgap semiconductors and high-frequency power electronics. She has held previous electrical engineering roles at Open Water Power, Fitbit, Astranis, and more. She received her M.Eng. and B.Sc. in electrical engineering from MIT.
TECHNOLOGY
Critical Need
Billions of new infrastructure dollars will be needed in the next few years to keep up with an increasingly electric future. In addition, 70 percent of power transformers on the grid today are over 25 years old. Furthermore, the ongoing transformer shortage is causing transformer lead times to surpass one year and costs to triple, threatening grid security. There is no solution in sight. Expand Power Technologies solves these problems, expanding electrification opportunities and providing a solution to the shortage by building a compact, smart transformer that can be manufactured domestically with shortened lead times.
Technology Vision
Expand Power Tech leverages wide-bandgap semiconductors and power electronics to build PowerGuard, an ultra-compact, smart, solid-state transformer. The significantly reduced footprint of PowerGuard opens an entirely new realm of possible areas for new distribution loads, such as data centers and commercial and industrial projects. Other key differentiators for Expand are its fast U.S. manufacturing that cuts lead times and bolsters grid security, controllability for power factor correction and harmonic mitigation that lead to increased grid resiliency, and its smart monitoring abilities for increased safety and fault prevention.
Potential for Impact
Expand Power Tech addresses electrification needs for rapid expansion of distribution loads while contributing to a resilient energy future with scalable, reliable infrastructure. Expand enables new distribution loads quickly and allows for increased renewable integration, facilitating a reduction of greater than a half gigaton of CO2 per year at scale. Additionally, PowerGuard is an actively driven device, allowing for fine-grained control, enabling substantial benefits leading to increased energy resiliency, such as harmonic mitigation, power factor correction, and more. Lastly, through its compact footprint, Expand includes disadvantaged communities, which typically suffer more from space limitations in the energy transition.
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