Keynote speakers: Operation and control of inverter-interfaced microgrids

Power electronics based microgrids have advantages in terms of flexibility, reliability, and power density. However, such microgrids are hard to control due to reduced inertia, increased uncertainties, and wide range of operating conditions. In such systems, the strong physical couplings among subsystems (inverter-interfaced distributed generators) must be properly considered. Simply introducing existing control solutions in large-scale power systems and unmanned vehicles cannot provide expected performance. To fully unlock potentials of such systems, novel control solutions that are fast and accurate need to be developed. Related studies are important for both civilian smart grid and the high-performance military power systems. During Dr. Liu's talk, he will introduce his recent work on upper-level microgrid operation, current work on lower-level AC/DC microgrids controls, and the advanced cyber-physical energy system test-bed that his group developed with fundamental components. One will see that there are significant opportunity with the cross-disciplinary research on microgrids.