Professor Xiao-Ping Zhang PhD, IEEE Fellow, IET Fellow

Department of Electronic, Electrical and Systems Engineering
Chair in Electrical Power Systems
Director of Smart Grid, Birmingham Energy Institute
Co-Director, Birmingham Energy Storage Centre (sponsored by EPSRC)

Contact details

Telephone: +44 (0)121 414 4298
Email: x.p.zhang@bham.ac.uk

View my research portal

Address: School of Electronic Electrical and Systems Engineering
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Xiao-Ping Zhang is a Professor of Electrical Power Systems, Director of Smart Grid, Birmingham Energy Institute, and Co-Director of Birmingham Energy Storage Centre sponsored by UK, and Head of the Electrical Power & Control Systems Group

Professor Zhang has been conducting active research in the fields of Energy Union, Global Power & Energy Internet, Super Power Grids, Smart Grids, modelling and control of FACTS and HVDC, renewable generation (wind and wave) control, integration of EVs into power grids, energy markets & game theory applications, smart metering, distributed energy management and services for homes and buildings and wide area grid awareness. He has received major grants from UK Government Science City Initiative, FP7 EU Smart Energy Network (Smart Grid) Programme, EPSRC and Industry etc. In 2010, he initiated the UK-China Smart Grid Workshop series, which has led to 13 UK-China joint research projects on smart grid, electric vehicles and energy storage.

In June 2011, he proposed the concept of “Global Power & Energy Internet” in the CIGRE Workshop held at the University of Birmingham. He pioneered the concept of “Energy Union”, which has been adopted by European Commission. He also pioneered the vision and concept of Midlands as the UK’s “Energy Valley” where this became true with the establishment of UK’s Energy Research Accelerator and UK’s Energy Systems Catapult in the region.

He co-authored 5 books (including the monograph “Flexible AC Transmission Systems: Modelling and Control”, Springer 2006/2012, and “Restructured Electric Power Systems: Analysis of Electricity Markets with Equilibrium Models”, IEEE Press/Wiley in 2010), 100+ journal papers and 150+ conference papers. He was an Alexander-von-Humboldt Fellow in 1999/2000. He is an IEEE PES Distinguished Lecturer on HVDC, FACTS and Wave Energy Generation. He was elected as a Foreign Fellow of Chinese Society for Electrical Engineering (CSEE), among the 10 CSEE’s first batch of Foreign Fellows in 2019. Prof Zhang has been named an IEEE Fellow for his contributions to “modeling and control of high-voltage DC and AC transmission systems.”

Professor Zhang is Chair of the IEEE WG on Test Systems for Economic Analysis and also Secretary of IFAC Technical Committee on Power and Energy Systems Control. He is advisor to the IEEE PES UK & Ireland Chapter. He published the visionary article on Smart Energy Community for Smart Cities in the IEEE Smart City News Letter in 2018.

He is co-founder of the UK-China Strategic Workshop Series on Smart Grid. He has been appointed as a panel member of the International Exchanges Committee of Royal Society since 2018. In recent years, he contributed to two reports on energy for Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology and UK Government Science Office.

Personal Webpage

Qualifications

IEEE Fellow
IET Fellow
PhD in Electrical Engineering, 1993
MSc in Electrical Engineering, 1990
BEng (Hons) in Electrical Engineering, 1988

Biography

Professor Xiao-Ping Zhang has some twenty years international engineering and academic R&D experience ranging from China and Germany, to the UK with a focus on Electrical Power Systems Engineering. In April 2007, Professor Xiao-Ping Zhang joined the University of Birmingham taking up the post of Reader in Energy Distribution Systems and Director of the University Institute for Energy Research and Policy after spending 7 years with the University of Warwick as lecturer, senior lecturer and then associate professor.

Professor Zhang previously had several years’ industry experience for the development of commercial SCADA/EMS/DMS products for the monitoring, operation decision and control of electricity networks. He held a visiting position with the Electrical Energy and Power Systems Research Group at UMIST (now the University of Manchester), UK in 1998/99 and a position of Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow with the Institute of Power Systems and Power Economics at Dortmund University, Germany in 1999/2000, which is a life-long honor.

Professor Zhang’s research activities include smart grid technologies; FACTS (Flexible AC Transmission Systems) and HVDC applications in electric power systems operation & control. It also includes integration of renewable generation including wind and wave energy generation systems into power grids; hybrid vehicles; smart metering and electricity market modeling & analysis sponsored by UK Research Councils, Industry, UK Government and European Commission FP7 Smart Energy Network (Smart Grid) Programme. He has established two advanced electrical power systems laboratories at the University of Birmingham, namely Smart Power Grid Laboratory and Real-time Power Grid Simulation, Measurement, Protection and Control laboratory.

Professor Zhang has over 100 publications including 3 books. Xiao-Ping has been an invited speaker for many panel & plenary sessions of International Conferences. He is Co-Chair of the IEEE Power & Energy Society Working Group on Test Systems for Economic Analysis. He is also the secretary of IFAC Technical Committee on Power Plants and Power Systems. He is an IEEE PES Distinguished Lecturer and Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid and Power Systems.

Teaching

Energy Engineering Programme
Electronic and Electrical Engineering Programme

Postgraduate supervision

Xiao-Ping is interested in supervising doctoral research students in the following areas:

Electrical Power Systems
Smart Grids
Power Electronic Control – FACTS and VSC HVDC
Renewable Generation Control
Integration of PHEVs into Power Grids
Smart Metering, Wide Area Awareness and Self-healing Power Grid
Energy Markets and Game Theory

If you are interesting in studying any of these subject areas please contact Xiao-Ping on the contact details above, or for any general doctoral research enquiries, please email: dr@contacts.bham.ac.uk or call +44 (0)121 414 5005

For a full list of available Doctoral Research opportunities, please visit our Doctoral Research programme listings.

Research

Technologies for smart grids
Application of power electronics such as FACTS (Flexible AC Transmission System) and HVDC in transmission and distribution systems
Integration of PHEVs into power grids
Protection and control of distribution networks with distributed generation
Micro-generation and Micro-grid
Smart metering and wide area monitoring and awareness
Power system economics
Large scale power system optimisation and planning
Analysis and control of power system stability
Power quality and harmonics

Other activities

Editor, IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid
Editor, IEEE Transactions on Power Systems
Editor, IEEE Power Engineering Letters
IEEE PES Distinguished Lecturer
Secretary of Technical Committee (TC) 6.3 Power Plants and Power Systems, IFAC - International Federation of Automatic Control
Co-Chair of the IEEE Power & Energy Society Working Group on Test Systems for Economic Analysis

Publications

X-P Zhang, Restructured Electric Power Systems: Analysis of Electricity Markets with Equilibrium Models, ISBN: 978-0-470-26064-7, IEEE Press/Wiley. 330 pages, June 2010.

X-P Zhang, C Rehtanz, B C Pal, Flexible AC Transmission Systems: Modelling and Control, ISBN 3-540-30606-4, Monograph, Springer Power Systems Series, 383 pages, Springer, March 2006.

Y Xue, X-P Zhang, C Yang, “Elimination of Commutation Failures of LCC HVDC System with Controllable Capacitors”, IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, accepted for publication in Oct 2015, 10.1109/TPWRS.2015.2491784

H. Wang, G. Tang, Z. He, J. Cao, X.-P. Zhang, “Analytical approximate calculation of losses for Modular Multilevel Converters”, IET - Generation, Transmission and Distribution, vol. 9, no.16, December 2015, p. 2455 – 2465, DOI: 10.1049/iet-gtd.2015.0228

P. Wang, X.-P. Zhang, P. F. Coventry, R. Zhang, “Start-Up Control of an Offshore Integrated MMC MTDC System with Reduced DC Voltage”, IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, accepted in July 2015, DOI: 10.1109/TPWRS.2015.2466600

J. Deng, C. Li, and X.-P. Zhang, “Coordinated Design of Multiple Robust FACTS Damping Controllers: A BMI-based Sequential Approach with Multi-model Systems”, IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, vol. 30, no. 6, pp. 3150 – 3159, 2015.

X.-P. Zhang,, J. Li, H. Fu, “Distribution Power & Energy Internet: From Virtual Power Plants to Virtual Power Systems”, Proceedings of Chinese Society for Electrical Engineering, vol. 35 no. 14, 2015, pp. 3532-3540 DOI: 10.13334/j.0258-8013.pcsee.2015.14.007

N. Deng, P. Wang, X.-P. Zhang, G. Tang, J. Cao, “A DC Current Flow Controller for Meshed Modular Multilevel Converter Multiterminal HVDC Grids”, CSEE Journal of Power & Energy Systems, vol. 1, no.1, 2015, pp. 43-51.

Z. Wu, X.-P. Zhang, J. Brandt, S.-Y. Zhou, J.-N. Li, “Three Control Approaches for Optimized Energy Flow with HEMS”, IEEE Power and Energy Technology Systems Journal, vol.2, no. 1 pp. 21 – 31, 2015.

B. Yuan, M. Zhou, G. Li, X.-P. Zhang, “Small-Signal Stability of Power Systems with Wind Power Generation,” IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, vol. 30, no.4, pp. 1680 - 1689 2015. DOI: 10.1109/TPWRS.2014.2353014,

J. Deng, X.-P. Zhang, “Robust Damping Control of Power Systems With TCSC: A Multi-Model BMI Approach With H2 Performance”, IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, vol. 29, no. 4, pp. 2014, 1512 – 152

P. Wang, X.-P. Zhang, P. F. Coventry, Z. Li “Control and protection strategy for MMC MTDC system under converter-side AC fault during converter blocking failure”, Journal of Modern Power Systems and Clean Energy, vol. 2, no. 3, September 2014, pp 272-281

Z. Wu, S. Zhou, J. Li, X.-P. Zhang “Real-time Scheduling of Residential Appliances via Conditional Risk-at-value”, IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, vol. 5, no. 3, pp.1282 – 1291, May 2014

C. Suazo-Martinez; E. Pereira-Bonvallet; R. Palma-Behnke; X.-P. Zhang, "Impacts of Energy Storage on Short Term Operation Planning Under Centralized Spot Markets," IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, vol. 5 , no. 2, 2014, pp. 1110 – 1118

S. Zhou, Z. Wu, J. Li & X.-P. Zhang, “Real-time Energy Control Approach for Smart Home Energy Management System”, Electric Power Components and Systems, vol. 42, Issue 3-4, 2014, pp. 315-326

B. Yuan, M. Zhou, X.-P. Zhang & G. Li, “A Joint Smart Generation Scheduling Approach for Wind Thermal Pumped Storage Systems”, Electric Power Components and Systems, vol. 42, Issue 3-4, 2014, pp. 372-385 (ISI)

M. Zhou, B. Yuan, X.-P. Zhang, G. Li, “Stochastic Small Signal Stability Analysis of Wind Power integrated Power Systems Based on Stochastic Differential Equations”, Proceedings of the CSEE, vol. 34, no.10, 2014, pp. 1575-1582.

Z. Li, X.-P. Zhang, Q.-L. Wan, “Transfer Characteristics of Thyristor Based HVDC Convertor in Subsynchronous and Low Frequency Band,” International Transactions on Electrical Energy Systems, vol. 23, no. 6, pp. 835–845, September 2013

A. Petoussis, X.-P. Zhang, S. Petoussis, and K.R. Godfrey, “Parameterization of Supply Functions in AC Electricity Market Equilibrium Models — Part I: Literature Review and Equilibrium Algorithm”, IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, vol. 28, no.2, pp. 650 – 658, May 2013

A. Petoussis, X.-P. Zhang, S. Petoussis, and K.R. Godfrey, “Parameterization of Supply Functions in AC Electricity Market Equilibrium Models — Part II: Case Studies”, IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, vol. 28, no.2, pp. 659 – 668, May 2013

X. Yang, X.-P. Zhang, S. Zhou, “Coordinated Algorithms for Distributed State Estimation with Synchronized Phasor Measurements”, Applied Energy, vol. 96, no. C, pp. 253-260, 2012

G. Li, X.-P. Zhang, “Modeling of Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle Charging Demand in Probabilistic Power Flow Calculations”, IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, vol. 3, no.1, pp. 492 – 499, Feb 2012

F. Wu, X. P. Zhang, P. Ju, and M. J. H. Sterling, “Optimal Control for the AWS based Wave Energy Conversion System,” IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, vol. 24, no. 4, Nov. 2009, pp. 1747-1755.

F. Wu, X.-P. Zhang and P. Ju, “Small signal stability analysis and control of the wind turbine with the direct-drive permanent magnet generator integrated to the power grid,” Journal of Electric Power Systems Research, vol. 79, no. 12, December 2009, pp. 1661-1667.

F. Wu, X. P. Zhang, P. Ju, M.J.H. Sterling, “Modeling and Control of AWS based Wave Energy Conversion System Integrated into Power Grid”, IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, vol. 23, no. 3, August 2008, pp. 1196 – 1204.

F. Wu, X.-P. Zhang, P. Ju, M.J.H. Sterling, “Decentralized Nonlinear Control of Wind Turbine with Doubly Fed Induction Generator,” IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, vol. 23, no. 2, May 2008, pp. 613 - 621.

S. G. Petoussis, A. G. Petoussis, X.-P. Zhang, K.R. Godfrey，“Impact of the Transformer Tap-Ratio Control on The Electricity Market Equilibrium “，IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, vol. 23, no.1, February 2008, pp. 65 - 75.

F. Wu, X.-P. Zhang, K. Godfrey, P. Ju, “Small Signal Analysis and Optimal Control of a Wind Turbine with Doubly Fed Induction Generator”, IET - Generation, Transmission and Distribution, vol. 1, no. 5, September 2007, pp. 751-760.

S. Petoussis, X.-P. Zhang, K. Godfrey, "Electricity Market Equilibrium Analysis based on Nonlinear Interior Point Algorithm with Complementary Constraints," IET - Generation, Transmission and Distribution, vol. 1, no. 4, July 2007, pp. 603-612.

X.-P. Zhang, “Robust Modeling of the Interline Power Flow Controller and the Generalized Unified Power Flow Controller with Small Impedances in Power Flow Analysis,” Electrical Engineering (Archiv für Electrotechnik), vol. 89, no. 1, 2007, pp. 1-9

X.-P. Zhang, C. Rehtanz, Y. Song, (Invited Article) "A Grid for Tomorrow," IET Power Engineer, Oct/Nov 2006, pp. 22-27.

C.-F. Xue, X.-P. Zhang, K.R. Godfrey, “Design of STATCOM Damping Control with Multiple Operating Points: A Multi-model LMI Approach”, IEE Proc. - Generation, Transmission and Distribution, vol. 153, no. 4, July 2006, pp. 375-382

X.-P. Zhang, P. Ju, E.J. Handschin, “Continuation Three-Phase Power Flow: A Tool for Voltage Stability Analysis of Unbalanced Three-Phase Power Systems,” IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, vol. 20, no. 3, Aug 2005, pp.1320 – 1329

X.-P. Zhang, “Multiterminal Voltage-Sourced Converter Based HVDC Models for Power Flow Analysis”, IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, vol. 18, no. 4, 2004, pp.1877-1884

View all publications in research portal

Expertise

Super European Electricity Grid: security and control against blackouts; high voltage DC electricity transmission; national electricity transmission and distribution grid: security and control; large offshore wind generation grid; smart energy for homes; electric vehicles charging and intelligent control.

Expertise

Policy experience

Professor Zhang has been actively involved in the policy developments at national and international levels. He played a key role in the development of the concept of “Energy Union”, which was adopted by European Commission to set up the 1st Energy Union in the World. He is proposing a global power and energy ‘internet’ that will allow the wide-scale adoption of renewable energy.

His contributions to Government and United Nations activities include:

2018. Member of Royal Society International Exchanges Committee
2015. Invited Expert, Regional Workshop on Energy Connectivity for Sustainable Development: Vision, Strategy and Initiatives organized by United Nations, Bangkok, 14-16 December
2015. Session Co-Chair with Austria Ambassador in Beijing - Dr. Irene Giner-Reichl, Workshop on Energy Connectivity and Transboundary Power Trade, 7 Nov 2015 to 9 Nov 2015, Suzhou, China, Workshop Chaired by Dr. Shamshad Akhtar, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and the Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific
Sept 2014. Wrote two papers for the IET project for Prime Minister’s CST (Energy) and GO-Science, “Modelling Requirements to Assess the Resilience of the Electricity System as it is adapted to deliver Low Carbon Transition”
- - Paper 1: “Emerging Capability on Power System Modelling: System Recovery Modelling”
  - Paper 2: “Emerging Capability on Power System Modelling: HVDC Systems”
2013. R. Green, Xiao-Ping Zhang, “The future role of energy in manufacturing”, Foresight Future of Manufacturing Project – Evidence Paper 11, Prime Minister’s Government Science Office, Oct 2013
2013. Proposal of the concept of Energy Union in a EU Parliament Workshop on Energy Interconnection in 2013, which subsequently has been implemented to establish the European Energy Union by the new President of European Commission on 25th Feb 2015.