International Future Energy Challenge 2025

IFEC – Introduciton

The International Future Energy Challenge (IFEC) is an annual undergraduate student competition in the design, implementation, and testing of power electronic systems. The competition topic and location change every year.

Topic – IFEC 2025

Isolated DC-DC Converter with Fast Transient Response and Low Noise

Input Voltage: 400 Vdc
Output Voltage: Programmable 20Vdc~150Vdc (Voltage accuracy: <0.5% @10 PLC aperture time)
Output Current: 10Adc max at all output voltage
Rated Output Power: 1.5kW@150V, 600W@60V, 200W@20V
Transient Response of Load Change (0A ↔ 10A @ 20V, 60V, 150V. Typical rising/falling time of load current is about 20μs): Output voltage recovers within 100μs to ±200mV settling band.
Step Response of Output Voltage:
- 20V→60V→150V: rising time<100us (No Load)
- 150V→60V→20V→Turn OFF: falling time<1ms (No Load)
Load Regulation of Output Voltage: <0.1% @ 20V, 60V, 150V
Ripple & Noise of Output Voltage: 200mVp-p/30mVrms @ 20V, 60V, 150V, (Full load, Set oscilloscope with 20MHz Measurement Bandwidth.)
Conversion Efficiency (include all power consumptions to sustain the operation of power converters.): Output voltage=150V, >92% (@25% load), >96% (@50% load), >95% (@100% load)
Power Density: > 1.6W/cm3

Learn More

Participation

Participation is on a proposal basis. Those schools that are interested must submit a proposal to the topic chair before the proposal deadline. Each Proposal will be judged by a distinguished panel of volunteer experts from the IEEE and from industry. Schools with successful proposals will be notified and qualified for the rest of the competition. The deadline for each period will be posted on the IFEC website. The outstanding teams will be invited to a competition event in the summer of 2025.

Award

First place $10000
Second place $5000
Third place $3000
Fourth place $1000

Important Notice

Each university can support only one team.
Each team should have at least 4 members. Interdisciplinary teams are encouraged. Graduate students are not excluded, but should only provide high level support.

Calender

Announce at IFEC 2024 Final Competition at Austin	July 14-17, 2024
Workshop at ECCE 2024	Oct. 21, 2024 More Information
Proposal Deadline	~~Nov. 15, 2024~~ Nov. 29, 2024 More Information
Notification of Acceptance	~~Dec. 15, 2024~~ Dec. 30, 2024
Workshop at APEC 2025	Mar. 16, 2025 More Information
Notification of Finalist	Apr. 1, 2025
Final Competition at Chro ma ATE In c. in Taoyuan, Taiwan	Jul. 15-19, 2025 More Information