A Ph.D. student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University won the best poster award at the Power Systems Engineering Research Center (PSERC) Industry Advisory Board Meeting in Urbana, IL.
Yun Zhang (center), whose advisor is Dr. Le Xie (left), won the award for their poster which described the research from a collaborative project entitled “Toward Standards for Dynamics in Electric Energy Systems,” with Professor M. Ilic of Carnegie Mellon, Professor V. Vittal of Arizona State and Xie as the investigators. (Also pictured, Professor Peter Sauer of University of Illinois, the Host University of the May 2014 IAB Meeting)
Their project introduces systematic wide-area measurement systems (WAMS)-based control/protection requirements to ensure no system-wide instabilities or large power/voltage swings. Structure-preserving models are derived in support of control and protection standards. In particular, Zhang and Xie have been looking at standards that enable “Plug and Play” in future microgrid interconnections.
Zhang received the B.E. and M.S. degree in electrical engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China, in 2005 and 2007 respectively. In addition to pursuing his Ph.D. degree in the department, Zhang completed an internship in the spring of 2014 at CenterPoint Energy in Houston, one of the largest utilities in the U.S. His research interests include power management strategies for distributed/alternative energy resources, dynamics analysis and control of large-scale systems, etc.
Xie is an assistant professor in the department where he is affiliated with the Electric Power and Power Electronics Group. He received his B.E. in electrical engineering from Tsinghua University, China in 2004 and his S.M. in engineering sciences from Harvard University in June 2005. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Electric Energy Systems Group (EESG) in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon in 2009. His industry experience includes an internship in 2006 at ISO-New England and an internship at Edison Mission Energy Marketing and Trading in 2007. His research interest includes modeling and control of large-scale complex systems, smart grid applications in support of variable energy integration and electricity markets.
Honors include receiving National Science Foundation CAREER Award and the Oak Ridge Associated Universities Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Awards. He is a TEES Select Young Fellow an editor of IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid and the founding chair of IEEE Power and Energy Society Task Force on Big Data Analytics for Grid Operations. Xie and his students received the Best Paper award at the North American Power Symposium 2012 and IEEE Smart Grid Comm conference 2012.
As the largest National Science Foundation Industry-University Cooperative Research Center, the Power Systems Engineering Research Center (PSERC) draws on university capabilities to creatively address the challenges facing the electric power industry. Its core purpose is to empower minds to engineer the future electric energy system. Hosting one of the largest power/energy systems programs, Texas A&M has been a strong participant of PSERC.
