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Knoxville - CURENT graduate student Lingwei Zhan recently received national recognition as he was named the North American SynchroPhasor Initiative (NASPI) 

College of Engineering graduate student Lingwei Zhan recently received national recognition as he was named the North American SynchroPhasor Initiative (NASPI) Outstanding Student of the Year 2015.

Zhan, who works with the Center for Ultra-Wide-Area Resilient Electric Energy Transmission Networks (CURENT) at UT, was awarded the honor for his role in the development and deployment of frequency disturbance recorders and the Universal Grid Analyzer, and his efforts to improve phasor measurement unit (PMU) calibration and clock stability, according to the NASPI leadership team.

"Being selected for this honor is a recognition of the research I have done, but to receive it from a peer group makes it even more special," said Zhan, a doctoral candidate in electrical engineering and computer science.

By advancing synchrophasor technologies, Zhan contributes to a nationwide transmission grid that is fully monitored and dynamically controlled in real-time for high efficiency, high reliability, low cost, better accommodation of renewable energy sources, energy storage, and responsive load.

Working in a research group of Governor’s Chair for Power Electronics Yilu Liu, Zhan has helped develop and deploy more than 100 single-phase PMU frequency disturbance recorders around the world.

He has also helped lead the effort to develop the multifunctional power grid monitor known as the Universal Grid Analyser (UGA).

The UGA has highly accurate synchrophasor measurement and power quality functions and can measure the distortion of power grid signals in real time, helping contribute to the development of more practical and accurate synchrophasor algorithms aimed at improving the overall power system.

The UGA is the core device of the Universal Grid Monitoring and Analyzing System, which was named a finalist for the prestigious R&D 100 this year.

Zhan’s research has also led to work involving the National Institute of Standards and Technology to verify the measurement capability of testing systems at UT and Oak Ridge National Laboratory as well as efforts to improve the accuracy of global positioning systems.

Funded in part by the US Department of Energy and the Electric Power Research Institute, the mission of the NASPI is to improve power system reliability and visibility through wide area measurement and control by fostering the use and capabilities of synchrophasor technology.