Our mission is centered around facilitating the transition of electric power grids around the world to seamlessly accommodate grid-forming technology across scales. We bring expertise from across technology sectors together to target this generational shift in the form and function of the power grid. unifi’s leadership team is composed of experts from across academia, industry, and research laboratories.

What We Do

The Universal Interoperability for Grid-Forming inverters (unifi) Consortium is a U. S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office funded effort to advance grid-forming (GFM) inverter technology. We are led by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) with Ben Kroposki serving as our Organizational Director. unifi’s relevance, value, and impact are centered around facilitating the integration of renewables, driving transportation electrification, and broadly expanding electrification efforts via cutting-edge grid-forming inverter technology

  • Relevance: future power systems will feature an arbitrary mix of machines and inverters at any scale necessitating development of interoperable GFM technology

  • Value: articulate the vision, conduct needed R&D, demo concepts at scale, author best practices & standards, & develop workforce training tailored for future grids with high numbers of inverters

  • Impact: addressing fundamental challenges & developing wide-ranging solutions to seamlessly integrate GFM inverters into power systems of the future will yield affordable, secure, reliable, clean, resilient, and sustainable grids

Why We Do It

Infographic of Inverter Based Resources (IBR's).

Large-scale integration of inverter-based resources (IBRs) with the power grid has sparked several concerns spanning stability, security, and protection.  A majority of IBRs interfaced with the grid today are of the grid-following (GFL) type, wherein, the inverter synchronizes to (and follows) a stiff grid.  A growing body of work has recognized that power grids with dominantly GFL inverters can face small-signal stability issues.  As a solution, consensus is forming towards the adoption of GFM IBRs  In this paradigm, IBRs do not follow the grid; rather, they form it and offer better control across timescales.  Several definitions of GFM tech and capability have been proposed by utilities, system operators, and regulatory agencies.  While there is no singular definition, we list some of these below and point to the fact that common themes and features on what GFM means start to become evident.

Leadership

Ben Kroposki headshot.

Ben Kroposki – Director
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

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Wei Du headshot.

Wei Du
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)

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Dominic Gross headshot.

Dominic Gross
University of Wisconsin

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Brian Johnson headshot.

Brian Johnson
University of Texas – Austin

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Iqbah Husain headshot.

Iqbal Husain
North Carolina State University

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Alejandro Dominguez-Garcia headshot.

Alejandro Dominguez-Garcia
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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Jack Flicker headshot.

Jack Flicker
Sandia National Laboratories

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Deepak Divan headshot.

Deepak Divan
Georgia Institute of Technology

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Deepak Ramasubramanian headshot.

Deepak Ramasubramanian
Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)

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Vijay Vittal headshot.

Vijay Vittal
Arizona State University

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Sairaj Dhople headshot.

Sairaj Dhople
University of Minnesota

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Aidan Tuohy headshot.

Aidan Tuohy
Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)

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Charles Hanley headshot.

Charles Hanley
Sandia National Laboratories

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Arvind Tiwari headshot.

Arvind Tiwari
GE Research

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Amie Sluiter headshot.

Amie Sluiter
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

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Governing documents