3-2-1 Blast-off! We launched fall in Houston with our Energy Delivery & Customer Solutions Advisory Meeting and time's been flying since then! As we lift our heads from the flurry of deliverable season, we know that end-of-year webcasts will comet soon!
As we transition toward year-end, our focus remains on delivering actionable research—through timely deliverable releases, insightful webcasts, and our commitment to serving as an extension of your team. Your feedback is invaluable to us. If you have questions about this newsletter or any aspect of our work, please don’t hesitate to connect.
Until then, we wish you all a wonderful fall season - whether you are celebrating Halloween today, Dia de los Muertos tomorrow, Thanksgiving next month or "deliverable season" alongside all of us here at EPRI.
Aidan Tuohy Director, Research and Development
Transmission Operations and Bulk System VG/DER Integration
Did you miss advisory? Do you want to relive the excitement? This year's advisory focused on:
EMT Modeling
Operationalizing Large Load Flexibility
Enhancing Ancillary Services
and more!
We had meaningful discussions across a wide range of topics, and we’re thoughtfully considering your feedback as we plan future initiatives. We held a webcast covering key takeaways this week. If you missed it, the slides and recording can be found here.
Materials are available at the links below for you to download. As a reminder, you must be logged in to access the materials.
You can still access all meeting materials via the FTP site. There, you’ll find zip files that allow you to download all presentations either by day or as a complete set for the week.
Deepak Ramasumabranian presented a tutorial on Grid Forming Inverters and gave a presentation on EPRI research work on System Identification-Based Assessment of Grid-Forming Capabilities in Wind Turbines
Global System Operation Summit
Held on September 24-26 by 50Hertz Transmission, the Global System Operation Summit in Berlin, the Global System Operation Summit brought together system operators from across the globe.
Vikas Singhvi led a panel titled Designing for Decision-Making: Human Factors in Modern Control Rooms that highlighted practical strategies for creating control rooms that truly empower the operators. Alberto Del Rosso participated in a panel on how research is tackling open challenges in transmission topology optimization.
DC Flex Annual Meeting
The inaugural DCFlex Annual Meeting, held October 7–8 in Orlando, Florida, brought together over 150 stakeholders from the energy and data center sectors to address the challenges posed by AI-driven load growth and the need for grid flexibility. The event featured a series of plenary and breakout sessions that explored critical themes, including risk management, grid citizenship, co-innovation, forecasting, interconnection, and flexibility products.
Key discussions highlighted:
The unprecedented nature of current load growth and the evolving role of data centers as strategic grid assets
The importance of collaborative planning and regulatory innovation, including standardizing flexibility products
Challenges and opportunities to improve the interconnection processes
Need for tailored retail and wholesale market programs to incentivize demand flexibility
TOP is well represented in DCFlex leadership, Irene Danti Lopez co-leads workstream 1, Robin Hytowitz co-leads workstream 2, and David Larson and Parag Mitra lead workstream 3, while Miguel Ortega-Vazquez leads the cross cutting modelling across all workstrems. Alvaro Vallejo, Anish Gaikwad, Eamonn Lannoye, Swaroop Guggilam, and Waleed Aslam are also supporting DCFlex work and presented during the workshop
Coming soon to a screen near you📽️
2025 NERC-NATF-EPRI Annual Transmission Planning and Modeling Workshop Webinar
We’re excited to inform you of our upcoming 2025 Annual Transmission Planning Modeling Workshop, presented jointly by NERC, NATF, and EPRI. Sessions this year will focus on Inverter modeling, including critical industry updates, and the integration of AI into planning processes.
Participants can look forward to engaging sessions and discussions that will highlight the latest developments in transmission planning and modeling. The theme for this year is "Inverters and Intelligence: The New Power Paradigm." The workshop will feature industry experts who will share valuable insights, best practices, and innovative strategies to address the evolving challenges in electric power transmission.
This workshop presents an excellent opportunity for industry professionals to network, learn, and stay informed about the cutting-edge trends and technologies that are shaping the future of transmission planning and modeling. Be sure to mark your calendars for this impactful knowledge-sharing event. This year’s workshop will focus on the following topics:
Essential Actions for IBR Performance and Modeling
Invitations were recently sent for all end of year webcasts and are open to members in any TO&P program. Given the positive feedback we heard from advisors, the webcasts will once again feature deep dive into specific topics, such as: Voltage Control and Stability in System with Emerging Large Loads (P39B), Modeling of Large Loads, VSC HVDC Links and GETs (P40A), and Use of Large Language Models to obtain insight on Grid Codes (P173A).
Is there something you would like highlighted in the next issue? Click on the suggestion box icon to submit your request to our team.
Preparing for 2026?
The 2026 roll out is a chance to learn what our research focus will be in 2026 and share your priorities with us. You can see the recording of the webcast across all of TO&P, and dive deeper into the project sets, with a series of pre-recorded videos from each of us. We encourage you to watch at your lesiure and share with others in your organization.
