Stabilising the power grid through grid-forming loads: the challenge of a European project led by CITCEA-UPC
The UPC’s Centre for Technological Innovation in Static Converters and Drives (CITCEA) is leading a European project to redesign the current energy system in order to stabilise the power grid in the face of growing renewable energy integration. The proposed solutions involve using the very devices that consume electricity to help balance the grid.
Sep 17, 2025
With the expansion of solar and wind power—both variable and less controllable sources—maintaining grid stability has become an increasingly complex challenge in today’s energy transition context. Traditional solutions, such as batteries or the temporary curtailment of renewable generation, are costly and not always efficient.
The European project Grid Forming Loads to provide maximum flexibility and enable future power systems with very high renewable generation penetration (GridForLoads) offers an innovative solution to the challenges posed by growing renewable energy on the electricity grid: grid-forming loads.
These make use of power-consuming devices connected to the grid, such as electric vehicle chargers and pump drives, which advanced control systems allow to actively help balance the grid. In this way, renewables can operate at full capacity without reducing production or compromising system reliability.
Project coordinator Oriol Gomis-Bellmunt, a researcher at the Centre for Technological Innovation in Static Converters and Drives (CITCEA) of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC), explains: grid-forming loads enable the responsibility for forming and stabilising the grid to shift from generators to consumers, reversing the traditional operation of the electricity grid, where generators have historically borne this responsibility. The research team will test this technology through experimental trials and system-scale simulations.
The UPC has filed a patent, 'Method and system for controlling a voltage source converter as a grid forming load', and is driving the development of the concept, as well as its commercial exploitation and application.
With €2.5 million in funding from the Horizon Europe programme and the participation of six European research centres and companies led by CITCEA, GridForLoads will lay the foundation for a more reliable, efficient electricity system ready for a clean energy future.
