Whenever new technologies are introduced into the power system, there is always a chance that they can disrupt the system, perhaps even lead to blackouts.

Finding ways to combat the grid impact caused by the introduction of renewable energy has been the focus of Vijay Vittal’s research for almost 20 years. He is the Fulton Professor of Energy Systems Engineering at Arizona State University at Tempe.

The IEEE Life Fellow is credited with devising how best to isolate parts of the power grid to prevent the entire grid from failing.

He was part of an IEEE working group that released a report in 2020 that described how equipment used for energy storage, long-distance power transmission, and renewable energy integration can affect the stability of the power grid. The report recommends ways to describe and define the problem.

Vijay Vittal

Employer

Arizona State University at Tempe

header

Regency Professor of Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering and Energy

Member Level

Companion for life

Alma mater

BMS College of Engineering in Bangalore

A paper he co-wrote and based on the report won the 2022 IEEE Power & Energy Society Prize Paper Award.

The award came as a “welcome surprise,” he says, even though “we thought the document came out very well.”

From synchronous machines to fast power electronics

This paper was an update of a 2004 paper co-authored by Vittal as a member of a joint working group established by the IEEE Power & Energy Society and CIGRE, an international association of power system professionals headquartered in Paris.

“Defining and Classifying Power System Stability” dealt with systems that were dominated at the time by synchronous machines—motors and generators—and their controls. By 2016, high-speed power electronics had been introduced to the grid, and their performance was different from the rotating machines used almost a decade ago.

“These challenges required a reassessment of how we defined and classified stability in 2004,” Vittal says.

In 2016, he and other representatives of the PES Power System Dynamics Committee and the CIGRE Council of Large Systems Research Committee formed a working group to update the 2004 document.

In Defining and Classifying Power System Resilience: Revisited and Extended, the committee noted that converter-interface generation technology, as well as load and transmission devices, are increasingly being integrated, causing the dynamic response of power systems to become increasingly dependent on complex, fast response. power electronic devices. Devices include solutions for storing electrochemicals, high-voltage DC lines for power transmission over long distances, flexible AC transmission system devices to help stabilize the grid, and power electronic converter interfaces that integrate renewable energy sources.

“The synchronous machine has one big advantage,” Vittal says. “It has this natural ability to provide support in terms of kinetic energy of inertia, whereas wind turbines and photovoltaic solar systems do not inherently have that capability.

“Renewable systems have no inertia in their systems to keep the rotation going. This creates a whole new set of stability, performance and performance issues that were not present in the system when it was dominated by synchronous generators.”

two men smile and stand in front of a black background with a sign in their handsVijay Vittal receives the 2018 Kundur Power System Dynamics and Control Award from then-President of the IEEE Power & Energy Society, Saifur Rahman.DOG

New tools and more engineers

Integrating new technologies into the network isn’t the only challenge, Vittal said. Also, he says, better analytical tools and more power engineers are needed.

Electric grids in the US and Europe are interconnected, he says, and new tools are needed to plan and operate them.

“The computational challenge of dealing with these large systems is huge,” he says. “We need efficient computational methods.”

Modern deterministic analysis only shows whether the power system is resistant to identified faults and hazards and whether it operates safely. Vittal says probabilistic tools need to be developed to provide more realistic risk assessments.

Another issue he worries about is the looming labor shortage.

“Several engineers with vast experience and excellent understanding of how systems work are either close to retirement or have already retired,” he says. “There’s this system memory that quickly disappears.”

Early interest in energy

Energy works in Vittal’s family. His maternal grandfather was a chief hydroelectric engineer in Karnataka, India, where Vittal grew up. During his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering at the BMS College of Engineering in Bangalore, Vittal took an elective course in power system analysis. This sparked his interest in energy.

Two years after graduating in 1977, he received a master’s degree in EE from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. He was inspired to work on grid stability by a consultant who was doing research in this area.

Vittal moved to the United States to complete his Ph.D. in EE at the University of Iowa, in Ames. After his graduation in 1982, he accepted a position at the university as a lecturer. He taught energy there for 22 years, with a break in 1993 and 1994, while serving as director of the Power Systems Program in the Electrical and Communications Systems Division of the US National Science Foundation in Washington, DC. Investigator Award.

He left Iowa in 2005 to join Arizona State, where he served as director of the Power Systems Engineering Research Center. In 2019, he was named Regent Professor, the highest teaching position.

He says he was never interested in getting a job in industry.

“I love working with students,” he says. “Working with youth recharges my batteries.”