The 2024 Millennium Technology Prize has been awarded to Professor Bantval Jayant Baliga of North Carolina State University, United States, for his innovation that has enabled dramatic reduction in worldwide electrical energy and petrol consumption.
Forbes Magazine named Prof Baliga the person with the world’s largest negative carbon footprint when he was inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame in 2016.
The €1 million global award for technology recognises Prof Baliga’s leadership in the invention, development, and commercialisation of the Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT).
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Since its development in the 1980s, the IGBT has been the most important semiconductor device for making electrical energy use and petrol consumption more efficient and less polluting during the past 40 years.
The efficiency improvements and reductions of fossil fuels consumption and cost, achieved by the IGBT, revolutionised the power industry. The technology has reduced global carbon dioxide emissions by over 82 gigatons in the past 30 years. This is equivalent to setting off carbon dioxide emissions by all human activity for three years, based on the average of the past 30 years’ timeframe.
Prof Baliga’s innovation enables the worldwide green transition and mitigation of global warming by making electrification and the use of renewable energy efficient and profitable.
All wind and solar power installations utilise IGBT-based technology to convert the generated electricity into a form that is suitable for consumer and industrial applications.
The IGBT is also an essential technology in electric and hybrid-electric cars, as well as in most other electric motors in consumer and industrial use.
The IGBT technology is everywhere around us all over the world, reducing energy consumption and making electricity use reliable: in medical diagnostic machines like X-Ray machines, CAT scanners and MRI units at the hospital; in microwave ovens and induction stoves in our kitchens; in air-conditioning and refrigeration for homes and buildings; in portable defibrillators, which were made possible by the IGBTs and are now saving countless lives around the world every year.
The performance capacities of modern IGBT have expanded to the point that today IGBT-based power converters and inverters dominate nearly every major application with a power rating between 1kW and 10MW.
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Prof Baliga said, “It is very exciting to have been selected for this great honour. I am particularly happy that the Millennium Technology Prize will bring attention to my innovation, as the IGBT is an embedded technology that is hidden from the eyes of society.
“It has enabled a vast array of products that have improved the comfort, convenience, and health of billions of people around the world while reducing carbon dioxide emissions to mitigate global warming. Informing the public of this impactful innovation will illustrate the betterment of humanity by modern technology.”
Prof Baliga and his team are currently working on two new inventions for further improvement of the efficiencies in the fields of solar power generation, electric vehicles, and power delivery for AI servers.
