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65892 It is well known that majority of power line disturbances are ¿voltage sags¿ and momentary outages. Existing power converters/inverters are large, expensive, difficult to control, exhibit slow switching speeds, have poor reverse bias safe operating area, and require high gate currents to turn the devices off. These traits limit their usefulness in high power applications, especially where higher switching frequencies are desired. This project will develop an optically isolated, high-power cascaded inverter, based upon recent advances in optical sensors, optical interconnects, and High-Voltage Integrated Gate Bipolar Transistors (HV-IGBTs). Phase I will build a prototype full-bridge megawatt inverter. Design parameters, including maximum voltages, currents, harmonics, and switching frequencies, will be optimized, and a scaling strategy for the Phase II system will be developed. Commercial Applications And Other Benefits as described by awardee: Productivity loss due to voltage sags and momentary outage affect most industrial and commercial customers and exceeds $10 billion/year in the U.S. alone. The modularized HV-IGBT inverter offers efficiency and reliability improvements, as well as cost, size, and weight reductions.