ICIEA 2026 Special Session

SS23: Grid-Forming Power Converters for Resilient Low-Inertia Power Systems

Organized by:

Organizer 1: Yi Tang

Email: yitang@ntu.edu.sg

Affiliation: Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Organizer 2: Qianwen Xu

Email: qianwenx@kth.se

Affiliation: KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden

Organizer 3: Jingyang Fang

Email: jingyangfang@sdu.edu.cn

Affiliation: Shandong University, China

Organizer 4: Songtao Huang

Email: huang.songtao@ntu.edu.sg

Affiliation: Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Summary of session:

The widespread integration of renewable and power electronic interfaced resources is transforming traditional synchronous machine based grids into low-inertia, converter dominated power systems. In such systems, maintaining stability and resilience under disturbances, faults, and operating uncertainties is a major challenge. Grid-forming power converters have emerged as a key technology to establish and regulate voltage and frequency, provide synthetic inertia and grid strength, and enable secure operation in weak grids. This Special Session focuses on modeling and stability analysis of low-inertia grids with grid-forming converters, advanced control strategies and parameter tuning, and coordination of multiple converters in large plants, microgrids, and clustered systems. The session aims to bridge theory and application and promote robust, scalable grid-forming solutions for future resilient power systems.

Background and Justification:

As power systems move rapidly toward high shares of converter interfaced resources, low-inertia, converter dominated grids are becoming a central focus worldwide. In these systems, grid-forming power converters are expected to provide voltage frequency regulation, synthetic inertia and grid strength, yet there is still no widely accepted framework for their system-level modeling, stability assessment, control design and multi-converter coordination. Existing work is scattered across power electronics and power systems communities, and often focuses on single devices or idealized network conditions. This Special Session will gather contributions that treat grid-forming converters as part of the overall low-inertia system, linking converter level control and parameter tuning with network dynamics, power sharing and resilience in weak grids. The topic is timely, aligns closely with IEEE ICIEA’s focus on industrial electronics and applications, and is expected to attract strong interest from academia, manufacturers and utilities facing upcoming grid-forming deployments.

Information of papers:

This Special Session welcomes original contributions on grid-forming power converters for resilient low-inertia power systems, ranging from analytical to implementation focused work, including theoretical developments and experimental results. Topics include, but are not limited to:

• System-level modeling and stability analysis of low-inertia grids with grid-forming converters, including small- and large-signal models, interaction with grid-following units, and operation under weak-grid or low-SCR conditions.
• Advanced control strategies and parameter tuning for grid-forming converters, linking controller structures and parameter choices to stability margins, dynamic performance, power quality and fault behaviour.
• Coordination of multiple converters in large renewable plants, microgrids and clustered systems, including power sharing, synchronization mechanisms and interaction with protection and grid-code requirements.
• Operation in complex and hybrid AC/DC networks, including the role of grid-forming converters at interfaces and in multi-terminal or multi-level architectures.