IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019 - 49

quality control, and power balance, were demonstrated
through field tests. The home grid can operate with or without the public grid, with a seamless mode change between
grid-tied operation and islanded operation. Some unexpected problems, i.e., the high nonlinearity of the isolation
transformer, the high nonlinearity of household loads, and
the large inrush current of air-conditioning units, were presented as well. The field trial demonstrated the favorable
integration of DERs without relying on communication networks while improving grid stability, reliability, security,
resiliency, and sustainability.

has had experience in building microgrid testbeds at different
scales for both research and education. She received the TechConnect National Innovation Award for her microgrid control
technology. She serves as associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics and IEEE Access. She is a
Member of the IEEE.

References
[1] T. Strasser et al., "A review of architectures and concepts for intelligence
in future electric energy systems," IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 62, no. 4,
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Acknowledgments

electronic energy network?" IEEE J. Emerg. Sel. Topics Power Electron.,

The contributions from Sanka Liyanage and Yiting Dong,
both with Texas Tech University, to this smart home project
are greatly appreciated.

[3] "The integrated grid: Realizing the full value of central and distributed

vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 127-138, Sept. 2013.
energy resources," Electric Power Research Institute, Palo Alto, CA, Tech.
Rep. 3002002733, 2014. [Online]. Available: http://www.epri.com/abstracts/

About the Authors

Pages/ProductAbstract.aspx?ProductId=000000003002002733

Qing-Chang Zhong (zhongqc@syndem.com) received his
Ph.D. degree in control and power engineering from Imperial College London, United Kingdom, in 2004 and his Ph.D.
degree in control theory and engineering from Shanghai
Jiao Tong University, China, in 2000. He is the Max McGraw
Endowed Chair Professor in Energy and Power Engineering
with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology and the founder
and chief executive officer of Syndem LLC. His research
focuses on power electronics and advanced control systems
theory, together with their seamless integration to address
fundamental challenges in power and energy systems. He is
a Fellow of the IEEE and the Institution of Engineering and
Technology; a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Power
Electronics Society, IEEE Control Systems Society, and
IEEE Power & Energy Society; and vice-chair of the International Federation of Automatic Control Technical Committee Power and Energy Systems.
Yeqin Wang (y.wang@syndem.com) received his B.Eng.
degree in automotive engineering from China Agricultural
University, in 2009, his M.Eng. degree in automotive electronics from the Clean Energy Automotive Engineering Center,
Tongji University, China, in 2012, and his Ph.D. degree in wind
science and engineering from the National Wind Institute,
Texas Tech University, Lubbock, in 2019. He is currently the
director of Technology at Syndem LLC. His research interests
include power electronics control, renewable energy, and
microgrids. He is a Member of the IEEE.
Beibei Ren (beibei.ren@ttu.edu) received her B.Eng.
degree in mechanical and electronic engineering and her
M.Eng. degree in automation from Xidian University, Xi'an,
China, in 2001 and 2004, respectively, and her Ph.D. degree in
electrical and computer engineering from the National University of Singapore, in 2010. She is an associate professor in the
Department of Mechanical Engineering at Texas Tech University, Lubbock. She is also a faculty affiliate of the National
Wind Institute, Texas Tech University. Her research focuses on
control, microgrids, and smart grid and power electronics. She

[4] M. Kezunovic, V. Vittal, S. Meliopoulos, and T. Mount, "The big picture:
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[6] T. M. Overman, R. W. Sackman, T. L. Davis, and B. S. Cohen, "High-assurance smart grid: A three-part model for smart grid control systems," Proc.
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Next Generation Smart Grids. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-IEEE Press, 2019.
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Architecture and technical routes," IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 64, no.
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grid integration," IEEE Power Electron. Mag., vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 18-27, Dec. 2016.
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the third industrial revolution," in Proc. 20th IFAC World Congr., vol. 50, no.
1, pp. 3592-3597, June 2017.
[11] Z. Li, M. Shahidehpour, F. Aminifar, A. Alabdulwahab, and Y. Al-Turki,
"Networked microgrids for enhancing the power system resilience," Proc.
IEEE, vol. 105, no. 7, pp. 1289-1310, July 2017.
[12] S. Gibbens, "Hurricane Sandy, explained," Feb. 11, 2019. [Online]. Available: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/natural-disasters/
reference/hurricane-sandy/
[13] U.S. Energy Information Administration, "Hurricane Irma cut power to
nearly two-thirds of Florida's electricity customers," Sept. 20, 2017. [Online].
Available: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=32992
[14] "Hurricane Harvey: Texas power outages affect more than quartermillion," CBS News, Aug. 26, 2017. [Online]. Available: https://www.cbsnews
.com/news/hurricane-harvey-texas-power-outages-affect-more-than-255000/
[15] President's Council of Economic Advisers, and U.S. Department of Energy Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, Economic Benefits of
Increasing Electric Grid Resilience to Weather Outages. Washington, D.C.:
Executive Office of the President, Aug. 2013.
[16] Q.-C. Zhong, W.-L. Ming, and Y. Zeng, "Self-synchronized universal droop
controller," IEEE Access, vol. 4, pp. 7145-7153, Oct. 2016.

December 2019

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https://www.epri.com/#/pages/product/000000003002002733/ https://www.epri.com/#/pages/product/000000003002002733/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/natural-disasters/reference/hurricane-sandy/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/natural-disasters/reference/hurricane-sandy/ https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=32992 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hurricane-harvey-texas-power-outages-affect-more-than-255000/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hurricane-harvey-texas-power-outages-affect-more-than-255000/

IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019

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