The Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) was honoured to invite Professor Janusz Bialek, Principal Research Fellow of the Imperial College London, to speak at the Felix Wu Distinguished Lecture in Power Systems, sharing findings from his current research “Change of Paradigm of Power System Operation and Control”. The lecture was successfully held on November 7, 2024, at the Tam Wing Fan Innovation Wing Two, The University of Hong Kong (HKU). After the intriguing opening remarks by Professor Felix Wu, Emeritus Professor & Honorary Professor of the HKU-EEE Department, and by Professor Yunhe Hou, Deputy Head of the HKU-EEE Department, the full house of an enthusiastic audience composed of Faculty members and students from the HKU-EEE welcomed Professor Bialek.
During the lecture, Professor Bialek first discussed the paradigm change of the technical characteristics of power systems, then shared his view on the question to what extent inverters can replace synchronous machines. Professor Bialek explained that while traditional power plants convert primary energy produced by thermal/hydro/nuclear power stations into electricity, the determining technical characteristic was the physics of the synchronous machines (SMs), yet, nowadays they are increasingly replaced by the so-called inverter based resources (IRBs) which wind/ photovoltaic plants batteries are connected to the grid asynchronously by means of power electronics, the key factor is now the control algorithms of the programmable inverters. His study looked into the issue of stability and other techno-economic challenges of IRBs. Professor Bialek concluded that it is a great time to do power system research, and encouraged interdisciplinary effort in tackling the challenges of IRBs.
For more details, please visit: https://ece.hku.hk/events/20241107-1
^ Opening remarks by Professor Felix Wu, Emeritus Professor & Honorary Professor, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Hong Kong. Professor Wu is also the founder of the lecture series “Felix Wu Distinguished Lecture in Power Systems”.
^ Opening remarks by Professor Yunhe Hou, Deputy Head of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, HKU. Professor Hou is also the organiser of the lecture.
^ Professor Janusz Bialek, Principal Research Fellow, Imperial College London.
^ Professor Bialek introduced the working mechanism and technical characteristics of a Grid Following Inverter (GFL).
^ Enthusiastic Faculty members and students from the HKU-EEE greeted Professor Bialek.
^ Audiences actively participated in the Q&A session.