Dr Victor Hugo Gonzalez Sanchez: Keeping the lights on in a power-electronic grid: reflections from DynPOWER 2026

Dr Victor Hugo Gonzalez Sanchez, Research Associate, University of Bath (Supergen Energy Networks Hub)

 

Our electricity grids are changing faster than ever. Large spinning generators are being replaced by wind turbines, solar farms, batteries and HVDC links, all connected through power electronics. This brings cleaner energy, but also a new question: how do we keep the system stable when it no longer behaves the way it used to?

 

On 7 September 2026, I travelled to Winterthur, Switzerland, for DynPOWER 2026, the International Workshop on Dynamic Stability Challenges of the Future Power Grids. This was the tenth edition of the workshop, held at the Casinotheater Winterthur and organised by Dr Rafael Segundo and Prof Petr Korba of ZHAW. It brought together researchers, system operators and industry from Europe and Latin America. The following day, a “Beyond DynPOWER” programme offered tutorials and a live demonstration in the ZHAW laboratories.

 

Lessons from real blackouts

Two recent blackouts framed much of the day. Hector Chavez (University of Santiago, Chile) explained what went wrong in Chile in 2025: a few seconds of oscillations were enough to split the system, and protection schemes designed for an older, more “static” grid did not respond as intended. Later, Kjetil Uhlen and Daniel Baltensperger (NTNU) opened their talk with the Iberian blackout of 28 April 2025, reminding us that stability is not only about frequency, but also about keeping voltages under control.

Smarter protection and better visibility

Emil Hillberg (RISE, Sweden) presented System Integrity Protection Schemes: automatic actions that step in when the grid is under stress. They allow operators to use existing lines more fully while waiting for new infrastructure. Jaime Cepeda (National Polytechnic School, Ecuador) showed how Ecuador’s operator has built a network of more than 60 synchronised measurement units since 2010, giving control rooms a real-time view of oscillations and supporting digital twins and predictive tools.

Getting power electronics to help

Several talks looked at how converters can support the grid rather than weaken it. Javier Renedo (Red Eléctrica) discussed guidelines for adding oscillation-damping controls to wind, solar, storage and HVDC converters. Luis Badesa (Technical University of Madrid) looked at a less obvious problem: inverter-based plants provide far less short-circuit current, which protection relays rely on to detect faults, and asked whether a market for this service would be truly competitive. Chunjun Huang and Camila Castrillón-Franco (TU Delft) presented stability studies for gigawatt-scale offshore wind and hydrogen hubs in the North Sea, and Alfredo Velázquez (ZHAW) and Caio Osório (Typhoon HIL) showed how converters can be tested with hardware-in-the-loop simulation before they ever connect to the real grid.

What I took away

The common message was clear: dynamic stability is no longer a niche academic topic. As grids rely more on power electronics, operators need better measurements, smarter protection and converters designed to support the system. This connects closely with my own research at Bath on the resilience of transmission networks to extreme weather: in both cases, the risks often appear when several stresses arrive at once.

Thank you

My thanks go to Dr Rafael Segundo, Prof Petr Korba and the ZHAW team for organising such a welcoming and well-run workshop, to all the speakers for sharing their experience so openly, and to the Supergen Energy Networks Hub for supporting my attendance.

Research