On the morning of January 15, Professor Bikash Pal of Imperial College London, UK, Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE), Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), visited the Department of Electrical Engineering and Applied Electronics (EEA) and delivered a special lecture entitled A Journey through Power System Dynamics, Estimation and Control. Professor Kang Chongqing, Dean of EEA, Wu Wenchuan, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee, Sun Kai, Deputy Dean of EEA, as well as postgraduate students from multiple research teams attended the lecture.
Professor Bikash Pal elaborated on the application value of emerging technologies including rapid power system dynamic estimation, phasor estimation and waveform estimation, pointing out that these technologies have become the core approaches to meet the timeliness requirements of real-time power grid monitoring and control. He gave an in-depth interpretation of the core significance of linear robust control, innovative methods for model and control simplification, and the low-order robust dynamic estimation and control technologies that ensure the stable operation of power grids, and discussed in detail the applicable scenarios and implementation paths of centralized and decentralized control schemes. In addition, combining the actual operational characteristics of distribution networks, Professor Bikash Pal conducted an in-depth analysis of key technical issues such as feedback signal delay processing and sensitivity-based voltage and reactive power control, and put forward ideas and suggestions with both theoretical value and practical feasibility.
During the Q&A session, the attending faculty and students actively raised questions around the core content of the lecture, and held heated discussions with Professor Bikash Pal on the breakthrough of technical difficulties and practical engineering applications.
After the lecture, Kang Chongqing presented a souvenir to Professor Bikash Pal on behalf of EEA, and expressed sincere gratitude for his long-term support for the department’s scientific research and talent cultivation.
About the Speaker
Bikash Pal is Professor of Power Systems at Imperial College London, UK, Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE) and Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE). He received his B.Eng. from Jadavpur University in 1990, M.Eng. from the Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore) in 1992, and Ph.D. from Imperial College London as a Commonwealth Scholar in 1999.
Professor Bikash Pal has long been dedicated to research in power system stability, control and estimation. He has led three international joint research projects between the UK and China, and the UK and India, with his research focusing on renewable energy grid integration and control technologies. He has established in-depth strategic partnerships with leading enterprises including ABB, Siemens, General Electric (GE) and National Grid UK.
He collaborated with Siemens’ R&D team to develop fast power flow calculation and voltage-reactive power control tools for Spectrum Power, the flagship module of Siemens’ distribution management system solution, which has now been adopted by numerous distribution utilities worldwide. Entrusted by General Electric, he led a series of studies on the analysis and solutions for the interaction between wind farms and high-voltage direct current (HVDC) grids from 2013 to 2019. Professor Bikash Pal served as Chief Technical Advisor of the Expert Group for the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and has provided professional training in power system protection, stability and control in Chile, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, India and other countries. The 68-bus power system model he developed and validated has been incorporated into the IEEE Standard Test Systems, becoming a universal standard for global researchers to conduct innovation verification of stability analysis and control design. He has published about 140 academic papers in IEEE Transactions and four monographs in the fields of power system modeling, dynamic analysis, estimation and control.
In 2016, the research team led by Professor Bikash Pal won the President’s Award for Outstanding Research Team of Imperial College London. For his outstanding contributions to power system stability and control, he was elected IEEE Fellow, Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and Foreign Fellow of the Chinese Society for Electrical Engineering (CSEE). In 2025, he was awarded the IEEE Power & Energy Society (IEEE PES) Prabha Kundur Power System Dynamics and Control Award for his technological breakthroughs in power system control and estimation. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE) in 2023 and Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) in 2025. He currently serves as Distinguished Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University and Adjunct Professor at North China Electric Power University.
Professor Bikash Pal was Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy from 2012 to 2017 and IET Generation, Transmission & Distribution from 2005 to 2012, and served as Vice President of Publications of the IEEE Power & Energy Society (IEEE PES) from 2019 to 2023. He was elected President-Elect of the IEEE Power & Energy Society (IEEE PES) for 2026-2027 and will formally take office as President for 2028-2029.
