Location: John Bardo Center, Room 264

Speaker
Ben Kroposki, PhD, PE, IEEE Fellow | Director – Power Systems Engineering Center | National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Abstract
Across the US, more states and electric utilities are setting 100% clean energy goals of which renewable technologies will be a major player. Variable renewable energy like wind and solar photovoltaics (PV) differ from conventional generation in that they use power electronic converters instead of synchronous generators to connect to electric power grids. At small levels, the power grid can easily handle the integration of variable renewable energy. At much higher levels, there are a number of technical concerns that must be addressed to ensure reliable and economic operations. This presentation will discuss the challenges and solutions to operating power system with high levels of variable renewables and how power electronic interfaces can be used to solve some of these challenges. 

Biography
Dr. Ben Kroposki is the Director of the Power Systems Engineering Center at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) where he leads NREL’s strategic research in the design, planning and operations of electrical power systems. He has over 30 years of experience in the design, testing, and integration of renewable and distributed power systems and has more than 150 publications in these areas with over 10,000 citations. Dr. Kroposki received his BSEE and MSEE from Virginia Tech and Ph.D. from the Colorado School of Mines. Dr. Kroposki is the recipient of the IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES) Ramakumar Family Renewable Energy Excellence Award which recognizes outstanding contributions in the field of developing, utilizing and integrating renewable energy resources in the national and global energy scenarios. As an IEEE Fellow, Dr. Kroposki was recognized for his leadership in renewable and distributed energy systems integration. Dr. Kroposki is also an Adjunct Professor at the Colorado School of Mines and University of Colorado and teaches courses on integrating renewable energy into power systems. Dr. Kroposki serves as the organizational director for the Universal interoperability for Grid-forming Inverters (UNIFI) consortium tackling the challenges with seamless integration of inverter-based resources and synchronous machines in all power systems.