Hans Björklund of Hitachi Energy, Sweden

HVDC, a Swedish invention about to change the power grids forever. Some reflections from 50 years at the forefront of power transmission technology

The energy transition to reduce CO2 emissions is changing the power grids landscape. This requires transmission and distribution capacity enhancement, as well as controllability and power quality for increasing renewable production, often at remote locations. Likewise, CO2 reduction drives an increase in electrification at the demand side, for example for the transportation and industrial infrastructure, which puts additional strains on the existing electrical systems. At Hitachi Energy Research we are investigating future power electronics solutions to enable a smarter, stronger, and greener power grids supporting the energy transition. Research and innovation will play a critical role in development and verification of new concepts in this area such as HVDC, MVDC, FACTS and other converter-based solutions.

Biography:

Hans Björklund received his M.Sc. degree in Electrical Power Engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden in 1974. That same year he started working for ASEA in the HVDC department performing system- and simulator-studies and designing HVDC control solutions. He developed the world’s first microprocessor based remedial action scheme in 1976 and performed simulator studies of sub-synchronous torsional interactions between HVDC converters and connected synchronous generators. 

Hans led the development and design of the world’s first digital control system for HVDC for the Itaipu project in Brazil from 1979 and from 1982 he led the design of the first fully redundant high-reliability HVDC control system for the Intermountain Power Project. From 1987 Hans Bjorklund lead the development of several generations of the MACH control and protection system within ABB and later Hitachi Energy. The very high performance of this system enabled the introduction of the first HVDC system using voltage source converters utilizing IGBTs in 1999. This marked the start of the transformation of mainstream HVDC towards VSC based solutions.

Hans is active in Cigre and IEC and has authored over 25 papers on various aspects of HVDC controls. He received the Polhem Price from the Swedish Engineers Society in 2014 and the IEEE PES Uno Lamm High Voltage Direct Current Award in 2021.

In 2024, Hans Björklund was elevated to the grade of IEEE Fellow.