Tutorial 2 (Flyer Download)

 

Harnessing and Monetizing the Residual Capacities of Community IBRs for Coordinated Power Quality Management

The rapid proliferation of inverter-based resources (IBRs) in distribution systems has fundamentally transformed both the physical and economic landscape of power quality management. Traditionally, voltage quality issues such as voltage unbalance (VU) have been mitigated through dedicated compensation devices, which incur significant capital and operational costs. Recent research demonstrates that substantial residual capacity exists within community IBRs—capacity that remains underutilized during normal operation. Leveraging this latent flexibility enables a paradigm shift from hardware-intensive solutions toward software-defined, coordinated control strategies. In particular, network-wide optimization frameworks can unlock this residual capacity to mitigate power quality issues effectively, while respecting inverter constraints such as current limits and apparent power boundaries.
Building upon this foundation, the tutorial will introduce advanced control and optimization techniques for coordinated power quality management. Beyond steady-state optimization, it is critical to consider the dynamic behavior of IBRs during control actions. Improper reference switching may excite oscillatory modes, leading to instability or degraded performance. Recent developments in mode-constrained, two-stage optimization frameworks address this challenge by explicitly shaping current injection trajectories in the frequency domain, ensuring fast yet stable transitions without exciting dominant oscillatory modes. The tutorial will systematically bridge steady-state coordination and dynamic control, providing participants with a unified understanding of how to design both optimal setpoints and transient-safe control actions in IBR-rich systems.
Finally, the tutorial extends from technical coordination to economic monetization of power quality services. In deregulated distribution systems, multiple stakeholders—including distribution system operators (DSOs) and distributed energy resource (DER) owners—have distinct objectives. Game-theoretic approaches, particularly Stackelberg game formulations, provide a principled framework to align these incentives by enabling DSOs to price voltage quality services and DERs to respond optimally. By integrating physical-layer optimization with market mechanisms, the tutorial highlights how residual IBR capacity can be transformed into tradable services, thereby creating new revenue streams while enhancing system reliability. Practical case studies and implementation insights will be included to illustrate real-world applicability.

This tutorial presents a comprehensive framework for harnessing and monetizing the residual capacities of community inverter-based resources (IBRs) for coordinated power quality management in modern distribution systems. It first introduces network-level optimization methods that exploit unused inverter capacity to mitigate voltage quality issues such as voltage unbalance, while satisfying operational constraints. It then addresses dynamic performance challenges by presenting advanced current trajectory optimization techniques that ensure fast and stable control without exciting oscillatory modes. Finally, the tutorial explores market-based mechanisms, including Stackelberg game models, to enable economically efficient pricing and participation of distributed resources in voltage quality services. By integrating control, optimization, and economic coordination, this tutorial provides a holistic pathway for transforming latent IBR flexibility into both technical and financial value in future power systems.






Tutorial Speakers





Pengfeng Lin
University of Cambridge, UK & Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China


Pengfeng Lin is now an assistant professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Fellow at University of Cambridge.
He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Southwest Jiaotong University, China, in 2013 and 2015, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in the Interdisciplinary Graduate Programme from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, in 2020. He subsequently worked as a Research Fellow at the Energy Research Institute @ NTU and as a Smart Grid Energy Expert / Research Scientist at Électricité de France (EDF). He has been recognized among the global top 2% scientists. He serves as a standard chair of IEEE IAS IPCC. His research interests include power system stability and reliability analysis, cyber-physical security of smart grids, and artificial intelligence–driven analytics for power systems.





Pengcheng Yang
Hangzhou City University, China


Pengcheng Yang is currently an Associate Professor at Hangzhou City University, China. He received the B.Eng. degree in automation from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China, in 2015, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Zhejiang University, China, in 2020. He subsequently worked as a Research Fellow at Zhejiang University until 2023. He was a recipient of the China Electric Power Science and Technology Progress Award and the Electric Power Innovation Award in 2022. His research interests primarily focus on the control of renewable energy systems, active grid-forming microgrids, and the collaborative governance of power quality in distributed power systems.