Power-system Modeling & Control for the Era of Inverter-based Resources

Abstract: Power networks all over the world are experiencing dramatic upheaval in compositional form and anticipated functionality. With retirement of fossil-fuel-driven synchronous generators, integration of renewable energy, and adoption of electrified transportation, there is a pronounced change in the energy-conversion interfaces that form the backbone of the grid. Particularly, energy processing in future grids will be dominantly handled by semiconductor-based power-electronics circuits termed inverter-based resources (IBRs). This talk will provide snapshots of how classical power-system modeling problems can (and will have to) be revised to accommodate these emerging technologies. In particular, we will present insights on synchronization of IBRs with a variety of control methods, provide a system-theoretic solution to normalizing dynamic models of diverse grid assets, and overview a time-domain network-reduction method for large-scale electrical networks. Each topic will be presented with an effort to acknowledge the rich history of personalities, methods, and venues relevant to power engineering over the 20th century.

Bio: Sairaj Dhople received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2007, 2009, and 2012, respectively. He is currently serving as Associate Professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Minnesota. His research interests include modeling, analysis, and control of power electronics and power systems with a focus on renewable integration. He is the recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2015, the Outstanding Young Engineer Award from the IEEE Power and Energy Society in 2019, and the IEEE Power and Energy Society Prize Paper Award in 2021.