EECS Candidate Seminar: Grid-forming Inverters—an Enabling Technology to Realize High Renewable Penetration Power System by Gab-Su Seo, NREL

About the event

Grid-forming Inverters—an Enabling Technology to Realize High Renewable Penetration Power System presented by Gab-Su Seo, faculty candidate in Power Electronics for the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, WSU.

Overview

This seminar will focus on recent and ongoing R&D activities and future directions for power systems with high renewable energy penetration with an emphasis on grid-forming inverters that are considered essential to stabilize low-inertia grids, overcoming drawbacks of the traditional inverter control approach and grid-following control.
The seminar will be twofold. The first part will discuss technical challenges in modern power systems with increasing penetration of inverter-based resources (IBRs). Discussion on the fundamental differences of IBRs from synchronous generators, including dynamics, control, and overcurrent capability, will elucidate the challenges, and it will also lead to opportunities to make innovations. Furthermore, it will pave the way to achieve future power systems that are more reliable and resilient by exploiting the new grid assets with new perspectives.
The second part will discuss ongoing R&D projects centered on grid-forming inverter technologies for the high IBR penetration grids. It will discuss recent developments of novel grid-forming inverter controls, inverter-driven bottom-up system restoration, and stability analysis of IBR-heavy power systems with key research outcomes presented including hardware demonstration.

Bio

Gab-Su Seo received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea, in 2015.  From 2016 to 2017, he was a Research Associate with the Colorado Power Electronics Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA. Since 2018, he has been with the Power Systems Engineering Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO, USA, where he is currently a Senior Electrical Engineer and leads research projects focused on power electronics and power systems applications for electric grids with high penetration of inverter-based resources. He has co-authored more than 70 IEEE journal and conference papers with one best paper award. He co-authored the Research Roadmap on Grid-Forming Inverters (NREL) in 2020. His current research interests include power electronics for renewable energy systems and microgrids and power systems engineering for grid modernization, including grid-forming inverter control and inverter-driven power system black start for low or zero inertia grids to improve grid resilience and stability.
Dr. Seo is an IEEE Roadmap Working Group Chair of the International Technology Roadmap of Power Electronics for Distributed Energy Resources (ITRD)–WG3 Integration and Control of DER. He is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, the IEEE Access, the IEEE Open Journal of Power Electronics, and the Journal of Power Electronics.