RT26 Conference Europe

Title: “From OLTCs for Transformers to MMC STATCOMs: Accelerating Power Electronics Development through Large-Scale HIL Testing with OPAL-RT”

Biography: Ibrahim is an Electrical Engineer with an M.Sc. in Power and Control Engineering from Deggendorf Institute of Technology. For the past eight years at Reinhausen, he has specialized in power electronics applications, particularly MMC and SST technologies. Starting in control development and later transitioning to system validation and real-time simulation, He has contributed to building and maintaining the company’s OPAL-RT-based simulation infrastructure. His responsibilities also include system administration and the execution of Hardware-in-the-Loop testing. 

Title: “From OLTCs for Transformers to MMC STATCOMs: Accelerating Power Electronics Development through Large-Scale HIL Testing with OPAL-RT”

Biography: Moritz Bengler is Head of System Simulation at MR, responsible for simulation activities across the company, ranging from power system studies to Hardware-in-the-Loop applications. Since joining MR in 2011, he has held various roles in OLTC development and engineering analysis. In his current position, he leads the design and strategic development of HIL infrastructure, supporting the validation of advanced power-electronic systems such as Solid-State Transformers (SSTs) and other converter-based grid applications.

Title : “Test automation with Hypersim and Python“

Title: “Cyber-Physical Power System Simulation: Platform Development and Cybersecurity Analysis“

Biography: Yuqi Wang received the M.Eng. degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Imperial College London, U.K., in 2024. She is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree with the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Sheffield, U.K. Her research interests include cyber-physical power systems, DC microgrid modeling and robust control, and cyber-security of power systems.

Title: “Enhanced Current-Limiting Control Design for Grid-Forming Inverters under Asymmetric Grid Disturbances with HIL Validation“

Biography: Qian Liu is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Researcher and PhD student at the School of Engineering, University of Warwick, Coventry, U.K., supervised by Prof. Xiaowei Zhao. His research focuses on the stability analysis and control design of grid-forming (GFM) inverter-based resources, with an emphasis on grid-code-compliant GFM capability.

Title: “Advanced dual P+M IEEE/IEC Std. Compliant PMU Library for Real-Time Simulation“

Biography: Dr. César García Veloso is a Postdoctoral Researcher at EPFL working on advanced measurement and signal processing methods for electric power systems. His research focuses on synchrophasor estimation, power system dynamics, and the development of tools for monitoring and characterizing modern power grids.

Title: “ACS5000 MV Drive Testing in HIL“

Biography: Valerio Salis has been the Product Software Owner for ACS5000 for the past three years. He has been working at ABB for the past six years. Prior to that, he worked for two years at Dyson as a Control Software Engineer. He holds a PhD in Power Electronics and Control from the University of Nottingham, UK, and degrees in Electronics and Control Engineering from the University of Rome Tor Vergata.

Title: “Closing the Loop Before VDE-AR-N-4110 Certification: CHIL‑Based Validation of BESS Controller Using OPAL‑RT” 

Biography: Dr Pitambar Jankee is a Controls Engineer at Siemens Energy, working in Battery Energy Storage System (BESS). His work focuses on power plant controller development, model-based design, system integration, hardware-in-the-loop testing and grid-code compliance for utility-scale BESS applications. He holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Cape Town, where his research focused on power-electronic converter control based on novel power theories. His broader technical interests include power electronics, converter control, power-system stability and the effects of geomagnetically induced currents on power systems. He is also a member of IEEE ITRG Working Group, contributing to the International Technology Roadmap of High-Power Electronics for Modern Energy Grids.

Title: “From Hardware-in-the-Loop to Prototype: Validating a Trapezoidal Energy-Balancing Control for an M2DC Converter, and Passing the Method On Through Real-Time Simulation Training“

Title: “From Virtual Converter to Physical Grid: FPGA-Based PHIL for Early-Stage Grid-Interaction Testing”

Biography: Martin Suberski is a Power Electronics and Real-Time Systems Specialist at TU Ilmenau Transfer GmbH. He has more than ten years of experience in the development, modelling, control, and validation of power electronic systems, with a particular focus on Power Hardware-in-the-Loop testing, FPGA-based control, and real-time system integration. His work covers the complete development process from converter hardware and control algorithms to communication interfaces, test-system integration, and experimental validation. In addition to technical development, he contributes to industrial projects, technology transfer, and the establishment of new solution and business areas in power electronics. Before joining TU Ilmenau Transfer, he worked as a research associate at Technische Universität Ilmenau. He is currently pursuing a doctorate on control methods for parallel-cascaded power converters in PHIL applications.

Title: “From V2G to Virtual Power Plants: Testing Strategies for Grid-Interactive Resources“

Biography: Dr.-Ing. Andrey Popov leads the product planning and innovation team for Keysight Technologies’ EV and energy business, shaping solutions for grid, EV charging, and battery testing. Before assuming this role in 2020, he headed the Modeling and Control department, focusing on real-time simulation and Power Hardware-in-the-Loop applications. He earned his PhD in control systems from Hamburg University of Technology.

Title: “Electrical and Thermal Real-Time Model of an ANPC Photvoltaic Inverter for Digital Twin Application“

Biography: Derk Gonschor completed his Masters degree in Renewable Energies at the TH Köln UAS in 2023. During his masters, he strated working as a research assitant at the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg UAS. Shortly after his masters degree, he started with his PhD in 2024.

Title: “Converter-Level Testing for Offshore Wind Turbine Powertrains at ORE. Catapult: How might we do it?“

Biography: Alexis Papandreou is an IDCORE Engineering Doctorate student at the University of Edinburgh, based in ORE Catapult for the duration of his doctorate. He holds a first class MPhys in Physics from the University of Edinburgh, with research experience in ALPHA, an antihydrogen collaboration and ATLAS, the Large Hadron Collider experiment, both based at CERN. His current doctoral research aims to develop real-time models capturing wind turbine aeroelasticity, electrical generator behaviour, and model to test-bench interfaces; all in the context of developing advanced grid compliance testing capabilities at the Catapult. 

Title: “Real-Time Power System Testbeds: Automation Validation and Distributed Co-Simulation“

Biography: Artem Kashtanov, M.Sc., is a Research Associate at the Chair of Electric Power Networks and Renewable Energy at Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany. His research focuses on wide-area monitoring, protection and control, power-system automation, and real-time simulation. He contributes to the development of control-center testbeds integrating SCADA and automation systems, as well as collaborative research on distributed real-time co-simulation.

Title: “Real-Time Power System Testbeds: Automation Validation and Distributed Co-Simulation“

Biography: João Pedro Scherer Cipriani, M.Sc., is a Research Associate at Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany, and a joint Ph.D. candidate in Electrical Engineering at the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM), Brazil. His research focuses on real-time co-simulation, hardware-in-the-loop testing, and the control and validation of inverter-based resources. His current work investigates communication delays and interface fidelity in distributed real-time power-system simulation.

Title: “DevOps with OPAL-RT simulators: an insight into Siemen Energy’s control software release under the CI/CD approach“

Biography: Since 2020, Lorenz Graf has held a Master’s degree in Electrical Energy Systems from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. From 2022 to 2024, he worked in Customer Support at OPAL-RT Technologies, gaining hands-on expertise with real-time simulation platforms. Lorenz Graf is currently a Software Engineer at Siemens Energy, where he is responsible for control software testing using Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) simulators.

Title: “Development and Validation of Utility-Scale Battery Energy Storage Control and Automation Systems Using Real-Time Simulation“

Biography: Dr. Bao Lai is a Principal Controls Engineer at Fluence Energy specializing in control and automation systems for battery energy storage and power conversion applications. His expertise includes grid-forming controls, substation automation, and the integration of utility-scale energy storage systems into modern power networks. He combines academic research experience with practical development and deployment of control solutions for utility-scale energy storage projects.

Title: “Beyond Power System Simulation: Real-Time Cyber-Physical Testbeds for Digital Substation IDS Evaluation“

Biography: Máté Rózsa earned his BSc and MSc degrees in electrical engineering at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME), where he subsequently began his doctoral studies. His PhD research focuses on self-organization of digital substation protection architectures. Alongside his PhD studies, he works as a research engineer in the DCP Research Group, contributing to industrial research and development projects focused on digital substations, protection architectures, real-time cyber-physical testbeds, hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) and power-hardware-in-the-loop (PHIL) testing and operational technology (OT) cybersecurity.

Title: “Bridging Simulation and Reality: Lessons Learned from IEC 61850 and ANSI C37.118 Applications in Modern Power Systems“

Biography: Francisco M. Gonzalez-Longatt, PhD, FHEA, SMIEEE is a Professor at Loughborough University (UK) and an internationally recognised expert in power system dynamics, stability, and renewable energy integration. With more than 30 years of experience in electrical power engineering and over 20 years as an international consultant, he has contributed to numerous large-scale energy projects worldwide. 

He is the author of more than 200 journal papers, 300 conference publications, and several books, and is the Founder and Chief Scientific Leader of FGLONGATT LTD, a consultancy specialising in digital energy systems. His research and consulting activities focus on grid-forming technologies, synthetic inertia, converter-dominated power systems, and the transition to resilient, low-carbon electricity networks. 

Title: “ Integration of Inverter-Based Resources into Real-Time Simulation of the Continental European Transmission Grid“

Biography: Dominik Frauenknecht received his M.Sc. degree in Energy Technology with a specialization in Electical Energy Engineering from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) in 2022. Since then, he has been working as a research associate at the Institute of Electrical Energy Systems at FAU, where he is pursuing a Ph.D. in electrical power systems. His research focuses on the modeling and simulation of power systems with a high share of power-electronic-based resources, particularly the assessment of power system stability in converter-dominated systems using real-time simulation.

Title: “From Offline to Real-Time Simulation: An Automated Workflow for the Continental European Transmission Grid“

Biography: Bernd Schweinshaut received his M.Sc. degree in Energy Technology with a specialization in Electrical Energy Engineering from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) in 2021. Since then, he has been working as a research associate at the Institute of Electrical Energy Systems at FAU, where he is pursuing a Ph.D. in the field of electrical power systems. His research focuses on the analysis and stability assessment of electrical power systems, particularly

Title: “Real-Time Power System Testbeds: Automation Validation and Distributed Co-Simulation“

Biography: Everton Leandro Alves is a researcher at the Centre for Power and Energy Systems (CPES) at INESC TEC and a PhD candidate in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Porto, Portugal. His work focuses on the development and real-time Hardware-in-the-Loop validation of protection, automation and control applications for active distribution networks, including IEC 61850-based communication and the integration of real-time grid models with physical and virtual IEDs. Before joining INESC TEC, he worked at Eletrobras Eletrosul on transmission-system expansion, protection, control and automation, including factory acceptance testing and commissioning.

Title: “CHIL Testing of MV converter controllers for variable speed pumped storage hydro applications“

Biography: Dominik Hofmeyer holds a degree from TU Dresden and completed his PhD at TU Chemnitz. He began his career at ALSTOM Power Conversion GmbH in 2000. Following the company’s transition to GE Power Conversion in 2012, he has continued his professional journey through its integration into the GE Vernova family. Currently, he leads the Drive Control team in Berlin, where he oversees the control for low voltage and medium voltage drives.