He was the principal coauthor of the IEEE Press/Wiley book on “Thyristor‐Based FACTS Controllers for Electrical Transmission Systems,” published in 2002. This book has been translated into Chinese and also has a Southeast Asian edition.
He is presently the Chair of the IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES) “HVDC and FACTS Subcommittee.” He was also the Chair of the “IEEE Working Group on HVDC and FACTS Bibliography” from 2004 to 2019 and the editor of “IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery” during 2003–2008. He has actively contributed to the development of IEEE Standard 1547‐2018 and IEEE Standard P2800.
He was the team lead for the first‐ever IEEE Tutorial on “Smart Inverters for Distributed Generators” in IEEE PES T&D Conference in 2016 and in PES General Meetings in 2017, 2018, and 2019. He co-delivered the IEEE Substations Committee Tutorial on “Static Var Compensator (SVC)” six times at different IEEE PES T&D Conferences and PES General Meetings during 2005–2012.
He has also delivered several tutorials, courses, workshops, and webinars on smart inverters, FACTS, SVC, HVDC, and solar/wind integration in different countries including the United States, Canada, Colombia, Nepal, and India for utility engineers, system planners, and researchers.
He has led several research grants, including multiuniversity multiutility projects, on grid integration of solar PV systems and FACTS, totaling over $11 million. He has also published more than 180 papers in international journals and conferences.
He has developed a set of innovative technologies of utilizing PV solar farms in the night and day as a dynamic reactive power compensator – STATCOM (a FACTS Controller), which he named as PV‐STATCOM. These novel PV‐STATCOM technologies on existing solar farms can provide a 24/7 functionality of a STATCOM at a significantly lower cost for the same benefits. The PV‐STATCOM technology both for night and day applications was successfully installed and demonstrated for the first time in Canada, and perhaps in the world, on 13th December 2016 in the utility network of Bluewater Power Distribution Corporation, in Sarnia, Ontario.
Dr. Varma holds 23 granted patents and 9 pending patents on this technology in the United States, Canada, Europe, China, and India. For this research, he received the Prize Paper Award from IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES) in 2012 and the First Place Poster Award in the 7th International IRED Conference in 2016.
He received the prestigious IEEE PES Nari Hingorani FACTS Award in 2021 “for advancing FACTS controllers application in education, research, and professional society and for developing an innovative STATCOM technology utilizing PV solar farms.” He became a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering in 2021 with the citation, “…Among his pioneering contributions has been a major ground‐breaking utility‐implemented award‐winning technology, PV‐STATCOM, that enables solar PV plants to provide FACTS functionalities at one‐tenth cost of FACTS themselves...”
He obtained B.Tech. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, India, in 1980 and 1988, respectively. He started his academic career as an Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, in 1989. He was awarded the Government of India BOYSCAST Young Scientist Fellowship in 1992–1993 to conduct research on FACTS at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada. He continued as a Visiting Assistant Professor at UWO until December 1994. He returned to IIT Kanpur and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1997. He was awarded the Fulbright Travel Grant of the U.S. Educational Foundation in India to travel to the United States in 1998 and do research in High Voltage DC (HVDC) transmission and FACTS at Bonneville Power Administration, U.S. Dept. of Energy, Portland, Oregon. He became a Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, in 2001 prior to joining the University of Western Ontario in December 2001.
Dr. Varma has held Adjunct Professor positions at the University of Waterloo and Ryerson University, Toronto. He is Senior Member of IEEE, a Member of CIGRE, and also a licensed Professional Engineer in the province of Ontario.
FOREWORD
During the course of my 33‐year career to date, I have had the privilege to contribute to a wide variety of activities associated with the application of Flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS) Controllers to improve power system dynamic behavior. This interest has taken me on a career journey with two different manufacturers, including direct experience on numerous utility‐scale FACTS installations.
Through our mutual interest with the application of power electronics‐based equipment to improve power system dynamic behavior, it was inevitable that Rajiv and I would meet by way of our common activities and volunteer work within the IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES) Transmission and Distribution (T&D) Committee and its HVDC and FACTS Subcommittee and participate in a number of its working groups including Performance and Modeling, Economics and Operating Strategies, and Education. Rajiv and I also interacted over the years on the subject of FACTS Controllers in the IEEE PES Substations Committee in multiple subcommittees and working groups. In addition, when I was an instructor in Bill Long's University of Wisconsin Engineering Professional Development program on the Dynamic Reactive Power Control Short Course series, Rajiv's book titled “Thyristor‐Based FACTS Controllers for Electrical Transmission Systems,” was the text for several editions of that course. Through these experiences, I became quite familiar with Rajiv’s work and contributions to FACTS and smart solar photovoltaic (PV) inverters.
With the advent of more cost‐effective equipment, along with the growing interest in decarbonization via renewable generation, the utilization of solar PV installations has grown significantly over the past decade and more. The application of this technology will continue to grow in the coming years as government mandates for Renewables Portfolio Standards (RPS) (or equivalent) increase and expand, while the total costs of PV installations continue to decrease. Beyond standard PV installations, which primarily focus on the control of the active power generated by the solar panels, lie opportunities for the application of smart solar PV inverters. Through advanced controls, smart solar PV inverters utilize the full range of capability for both active and reactive power, which in turn allows for a variety of benefits to improve power system dynamic behavior. These concepts are highlighted in detail in the various pages of this book.
Around 2009, Rajiv began to develop ground‐breaking techniques to transform solar PV inverters into the performance of a STATCOM, which provides various functionalities both during the night and day. Rajiv termed this advancement as PV‐STATCOM, which is essentially a new FACTS Controller. The PV‐STATCOM controls can provide several advanced grid support functions such as dynamic voltage control, power oscillation damping, mitigation of subsynchronous control interactions and torsional oscillations, improved Fault‐Induced Delayed Voltage Recovery (FIDVR), stabilization of remote critical motors, and fast frequency response, all of which can lead to improved dynamic performance, increased power transfer and load serving, and enhanced connectivity of neighboring wind plants and solar plants. It is worth noting that the PV‐STATCOM technology is about 10 times more economical than an equivalent‐sized STATCOM. This advancement by Rajiv, along with a field demonstration for the first time in 2016, is described in the various pages of this book in several chapters.
Rajiv, by providing this book to the industry, captures his career‐long dedication to, and knowledge of, power electronics‐based systems to improve dynamic performance. This book is a timely addition on the growing topic of smart solar PV installations. The topics cover a wide range of interest from smart PV inverter functions, modeling and control, applications (both distribution and transmission), hosting capacity, coordinated control, and emerging trends. The treatment further supports
