NSF Award
2420102
During this three-year IRES project,18 U.S. students, recruited nationally, will go for 8 weeks per year to Melbourne (Australia) to engage in research and related professional activities in electric power systems. The project builds on a long-established collaboration between the Virginia Tech PIs and experts at Monash University, Australia. The overarching research theme of this project is to enable integration of renewable energy components in the grid through the concept of grid-forming (GFM) inverter-based resources (IBR). The industry and government interest in GFM has recently significantly increased as a potential solution for large-scale adaptation of renewables at the power system transmission level. Simultaneously, this is an area of research in which Australia has significantly more experience than the rest of the world due to their natural geography as a large island with uneven population distribution. This program is mutually beneficial and strengthens our existing U.S.-Australia collaboration by providing a framework for conducting research projects of common interest in a global sense while also training U.S. students in this important area of technological advancement. Students will gain firsthand experience of different practices in distribution and transmission systems. Our alumni will be a cohort of U.S. individuals with highly desired skills for industry and graduate programs nationally and internationally. This program strengthens students' training by offering a balanced experience, including living and working in a foreign country, research, visiting global world-class companies, and professional development workshops. These efforts increase their marketability in today world's global workforce as they gain experience in working with global electric power systems.<br/><br/>The intellectual challenges that need to be addressed in this project include operation across different timescales, control and coordination of a large set of small generation units, and lack of mechanical inertia. This work is expected to contribute to (i) algorithms to study feasibility of grid-forming operation of inverters, (ii) simulation methods and algorithms capable of handling systems with a large number of dynamical states, and (iii) power sharing of a massive number of inverters. The students will work on the design of algorithms and methods to enable operation of the power system with grid-forming inverters and to eventually ensure the same or higher level of reliability and security as the existing synchronous generator-dominated power system.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
