Dr. Gunnar Asplund This is Me

Education

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1. 1. The ABB Group: Trend toward offshore wind farms is good news for suppliers like ABB

   www.abb.com/cawp/seitp202/bdf0 - [Cached]

   Published on: 9/21/2007   Last Visited: 5/17/2008

   "One of the challenges of offshore wind generation installations is the problem of transporting power that is generated far from the consumers who will actually use it," said Gunnar Asplund, ABB's research manager for high-voltage direct current (HVDC).

2. 2. Sweden's Royal Institute of Technology honors HVDC Light pioneer

   www.ca.abb.com/global/seitp/se - [Cached]

   Published on: 10/4/2005   Last Visited: 5/30/2006

   2005-10-04 - Gunnar Asplund, the ABB engineer who led the development of HVDC Light, has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. By Editorial services
   
   Asplund, who is responsible for research and development in HVDC Light (high-voltage direct current), will be honored on November 18 at the Stockholm City Hall. The Royal Insititute of Technology - in Swedish, Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan - was founded in 1827 and is the country's largest technical university.
   
   In his ongoing 35-year career at ABB, Asplund has spearheaded several pioneering initiatives. With 25 patents to his credit - many of them in HVDC Light - he is considered the father of the technology and has authored, or co-authored, more than 25 related technical papers.
   
   Asplund was commissioning manager of the Itaipu HVDC transmission project in Brazil from 1982 - 1985 - at the time, the largest-ever HVDC transmission project.
   
   "Gunnar is the originator of many of the pioneering innovations within HVDC," said Sten Jakobsson, President of ABB in Sweden.
   ...
   Based on his proposal, ABB sponsored a development project and Asplund and his team solved the uneven voltage-distribution problem of series-connected transistors (Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors or IGBT), making it possible to use them in high voltage applications.
   
   They also proposed the circuitry of the Voltage Source Converters (VSC) that ABB uses today, overcoming several technical difficulties. "Working in research has been very interesting," Asplund said. "One of the best things with HVDC is that you can spend your whole working life without learning everything, as it consists of so many different areas of technology and activity."
   
   HVDC technology led to the development of HVDC Light, and Asplund in recent years has played a critical role in implementing several HVDC Light projects, including the Troll A gas platform in Norway commissioned this month, the Cross Sound project in the USA, Hellsjon and Gotland projects in Sweden, and Directlink and Murraylink in Australia.
   
   Lead designer
   
   He was a lead designer of specialized thyristor valves, a Thyristor Control Unit and voltage source converters - all serving to make HVDC state-of-the-art technology.
   
   Within ABB, Asplund is a known as a source of innovation and inspiration to others. He is also known among ABB's academic partners as a supporter of their related research. At academic institutions like KTH Asplund has spearheaded collaborations with the electrical power industry.
   
   "I think it is a very important that there exist an institution in society that can search for knowledge without having to produce results that can earn money in the short term," Asplund said. "This makes it a great honor to become a honorary doctor - and will make my academic engagement even stronger." Asplund added that original research and talented research teams are one of ABB's enduring strengths.
   
   In the beginning
   
   Completing his MSc at Lund University in Sweden, Asplund started his engineering career at Asea in Ludvika, Sweden, in 1970. He worked in power transformers until 1975, spearheading thyristor valve design until 1981. In the early 1980s he took a three-year posting in Brazil to oversee the Itaipu dam project, and returned to Ludvika in 1985 to head HVDC system design.
   
   When Asea merged with Brown Boveri to form ABB in 1988, he was project manager for the global company's HVDC research center in Ludvika. He has been in charge of project development since 1993.
   
   Asplund and his wife Barbro still live in Ludvika where they raised three children, Daniel 33, Anna, 31, and Emil, 27.
   
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3. 3. HVDC Light: seven years old and already grown up

   www.mx.abb.com/global/seitp/se - [Cached]

   Published on: 8/31/2006   Last Visited: 10/5/2006

   The additional capacity will increase the opportunities for using it in this way, said ABB's Gunnar Asplund, who led the technology's development.
   
   Gunnar Asplund (left) and Samir Brikho, head of ABB's Power Systems division, share a joke at Cigre 2006.
   ...
   "Changes to the electricity market so that power can be produced and consumed anywhere will show up a lot of bottlenecks that hinder trade," Asplund said. "The other place where reinforcements will become necessary is in connecting offshore wind farms."
   
   HVDC Light is one of ten technologies ABB is highlighting at the week-long exhibition in the French capital, organized by the International Council on Large Electric Systems, or Cigré.
   
   The threefold increase in capacity extends the attractiveness of HVDC Light in several applications, Asplund said.
   
   Buried underground and with no electromagnetic fields, environmentally-friendly HVDC Light is now a more serious alternative for utilities struggling to win planning permission for overhead lines because it can be used for distances of as much as 600 kilometers (400 miles).
   
   It can also help cities around the world, many of them growing fast, to meet rising power needs without more unsightly overhead lines and bulky power equipment in urban areas. And it makes talk of large offshore wind farms generating as much as 1,000 MW a more realistic possibility, Asplund said.