Energy Systems

PowerUp 2026 Conference

Daniel Morton — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 22:50:12 +0000

PowerUp 2026 Conference Daniel Morton Thu, 10/01/2026 - 16:50

Daniel Morton

The first PowerUp Conference was held in �Ǹ�Թ�, CO, with support from RASEI in the SEEC building on the CU �Ǹ�Թ� East Campus.

PowerUp is a new research conference focused on the future of electric power systems and the technologies that support them. More than 200 attendees came together to participate in a series of seminars, workshops, poster sessions, and social networking events. RASEI Fellow Kyri Baker is a member of the Conference Leadership and was the key local organizer for this year’s event.

During the three-day event the attendees explored and exchanged ideas across a broad range of topics, including grid planning and optimization, renewable energy integration, energy storage systems, AI & Machine Learning in Power Systems and many more.

The organizers were very intentional about the conference process, with all papers being reviewed in a double-blind manner, and employing a transparent review process. The full proceedings and reviews from the conference can be found here.

The program was intentionally designed as a single-track event, designed to maintain participants focus on the high-quality content and encourage interaction among the participants. The event wrapped up with a debrief and feedback session, asking the participants about what worked well, and what didn’t, that will setup the organizers well for the 2028 event that will be hosted at the University of Michigan.

A selection of participants from the PowerUp 2026 Conference

SEPTEMBER 2026

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RASEI Fellow Kyri Baker Interviewed on PBS

Daniel Morton — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 17:38:22 +0000

RASEI Fellow Kyri Baker Interviewed on PBS Daniel Morton Tue, 12/16/2025 - 10:38

December 2025

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The Grid’s New Shock Absorber: ‘Droop-e’ Control tames frequency swings and keeps renewable energy flowing smoothly

Daniel Morton — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 16:00:00 +0000

The Grid’s New Shock Absorber: ‘Droop-e’ Control tames frequency swings and keeps renewable energy flowing smoothly Daniel Morton Tue, 12/09/2025 - 09:00

Daniel Morton

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Check out the article

Electricity is crucial to modern life. We rely on being able to plug devices in to the outlet in the wall, flipping a switch, and things working without a problem. But it is not that simple, the power grid, all of the infrastructure that delivers energy from the power plant to your home, is something of a balancing act.

In order for a grid to operate safely, supply must equal demand. The flow of electricity through the grid in the United States flows at a frequency of 60 Hz, if the supply increases more than the demand, the frequency will increase, while if the demand increases, or the supply dips, the frequency decreases. The vast array of hardware that makes up the grid and in electrical devices, such as transformers, motors, or electronics, have been designed to operate at a specific frequency. If the grid is unbalanced, and the frequency changes too much, equipment can be damaged, efficiency is reduced, and it can lead to overheating, system failures, and blackouts. Keeping the grid online, and safe, is a balancing act that requires sophisticated controls systems to make sure that supply always equals demand.

Think of the electric grid like a high-speed train system. In order for the train system to operate effectively all the trains need to maintain consistent speeds and keep to schedule, so passengers are not left waiting on the platform, or miss their trains because they left too early. Traditional power plants are like massive freight trains, that are super heavy and take a long time to speed up or slow down. These massive freight trains provide a kind of inertia to the whole system. They are hard to disrupt, which results in a consistent speed. Renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind, are more like fast, light commuter trains, that can change speed essentially instantly. They lack the inertia of the massive freight trains, but they can change fast. If it were up to just human conductors and train line controllers to regulate how the trains are running, having the freight trains and the commuter trains on the same lines would be near impossible, the difference in speed and inertia would make it really hard to reconcile. This is where advanced computer-driven control systems come into play. In the train analogy the smart predictive system would predictively control the brake and throttle of the commuter trains to ensure a simple constant speed. How would the grid be impacted if we developed a smart control system?

This new report details work led by RASEI Fellow Bri-Mathias Hodge, and discloses a new approach for smart control in the grid. The grid is already full of control systems, with the standard way power generators respond to frequency events being via linear droop control. This would be like a simplistic cruise control for one of the Commuter Trains in the above analogy. If the frequency drops a little, the system increases the power proportionately. The problem with this approach is that it often doesn’t use the inverters full capacity fast enough. The innovation described in this work is an update called Droop-e, a non-linear control based on an exponential function. Think of it like replacing the trains cruise control, which previously had a simple on/off switch, with a smart responsive gas pedal, that can speed up, or slow down, on a curve.

This change, from an on/off control to a responsive curve, has the potential to have significant impacts on the grid. By using the available power reserves more effectively, Droop-e reduces the number of severe power swings in the system, and results in a slower rate of change of frequency (ROCOF), which can buy grid operators valuable time to react to changes in frequency.

Daniel Morton — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 17:13:23 +0000

Supply-chain delays, rising equipment prices threaten electricity grid Daniel Morton Fri, 11/14/2025 - 10:13

Daniel Morton

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Article in The Conversation

CU �Ǹ�Թ� Today Highlight

Renewable Energy World

The Invading Sea

RASEI Fellow Kyri Baker co-authored an article in The Conversation exploring how supply-chain delays and rising costs are impacting the United States Electricity Grid