Professor Xin Zhang
School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Professor in Control and Power Systems
Full contact details
School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Sir Frederick Mappin Building
Mappin Street
Sheffield
S1 3JD
- Profile
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I am the Professor and Chair in Control and Power Systems at University of Sheffield. Currently, I hold the prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship 'Digitalisation of Electrical Power and Energy Systems Operation, MR/W011360/2, £1.5m', and the EPSRC New Investigator Award 'Grid flexibility through multiscale modelling and integration of power systems with electrified air transport, EP/W028905/1, £400k'.
My research experience covers power system operation and control, cyber-physical power systems, cybersecurity and resilience of power systems, real-time digital simulation, and grid integration with land-air transport electrification.
I lead the Control and Power Systems Laboratory (CAPS Lab) of University of Sheffield. At CAPS, we investigate digitalisation technologies that could potentially improve the monitoring and control of power grids in both cyber and physical aspects. We explore the advanced grid monitoring platform, state estimation techniques, cybersecurity strategy, contingency analysis, vulnerability assessment, and robust network control. At CAPS, we develop co-simulation platform for digital power grids, that enables the fundamental integration of cyber and physical simulators for the accurate, efficient and large-scale grid simulation. Our work involves the interfacing design for model-to-model integration of different complex networks, simulation synchronisation at various time steps, and advanced computing methods and algorithms to create a co-optimised analysis of cyber-physical power systems.
My industrial experience (2011-19) was gained from National Grid ESO as the GB Electricity System Operator, where I was professionally trained as a power system engineer in the real-time power system operation, mainly in the GB Electricity National Control Centre. My specific industrial expertise includes power system modelling and operational tools development for energy balancing and network control, to improve the security, resilience and economic operation of the GB power transmission systems.
- Research interests
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My research is interdisciplinary across power, energy, and digital aspects of system engineering. My primary research interest is in power systems, with wider research interests of cyber-security, machine learning, digital twins and their applications in power & energy industry.
Broadly, I investigate net-zero energy networks as critical infrastructure, integrating transport, information and communications, renewable, storage and hydrogen. I address energy security and resilience challenges across Energy Theme.
- Power system planning, operation and control (transmission, distribution, microgrid, renewables)
- Cyber-physical system modelling and co-simulation (networked system control, power, energy, communications, transport)
- Laboratory research platforms, hardware and facilities for simulation and control of power grid (real-time digital simulators, power electronics, intelligent computing)
- Transport electrification (electric vehicle / aircraft charging, transport-energy nexus)
- Publications
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Journal articles
- Adaptive Robust Planner-Attacker-Operator Model Against Multistage Uncertain Malicious Attacks for Power Systems With Volatile Wind Power. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, 1-12.
- Data Centers for Sustainable Grids: From Microgrids to Supergrids. IEEE Energy Sustainability Magazine, 2(1), 57-68.
- Robust Resilience Enhancement Strategy Against Uncertain Cyber-Physical Coordinated Attacks Considering Power-Communication Network Interdependence. IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, 1-15.
- Bilevel Cyber-Induced Overloads Mechanism for False Data Injection Attacks Considering Post-Attack Economic Dispatch. IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, 1-1.
- Distributionally Robust Chance-Constrained Unit Commitment for Power Systems Considering Wind Power Curtailment and Load Shedding Levels. IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, 1-1.
- A Three-Stage Optimal Frequency Regulation Scheme for Wind Turbines With Pontryagin's Minimum Principle. IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, 41(2), 1591-1604.
- Safe reinforcement learning-based energy management for fuel cell hybrid electric aircraft with longevity considerations. Energy, 338, 138782-138782.
- Malicious attacks for maximising island numbers in cyber-physical power system: a graph-theoretic approach. IEEE Internet of Things Journal. View this article in WRRO
- Game theory-based vulnerability analysis of cyber-physical power systems under interdependent network attacks. Cyber-Physical Energy Systems. View this article in WRRO
- Optimal Dispatch of an Electricity-Thermal-Hydrogen Microgrid for Zero-Carbon Airport Operations with Electric and Hydrogen Aircraft. eTransportation, 100485-100485.
- N-1 evaluation of integrated electricity and gas system considering cyber-physical interdependence. IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, 1-1. View this article in WRRO
- Cyber-physical real-time digital simulation for cybersecurity analysis in microgrids. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems, 3, 429-441. View this article in WRRO
- High risk regional load attacks in smart grids. IEEE Internet of Things Journal. View this article in WRRO
- Small-Signal-Stability-Guaranteed Moving Target Defense Against Load Redistribution Attack on IoT-Based Smart Grid. IEEE Internet of Things Journal, 12(11), 17413-17429.
- Two-stage adaptive robust model for AC network-constrained unit commitment in power systems with uncertain wind power. IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy, 1-13. View this article in WRRO
- Matrix coding enabled impact mitigation against primary false data injection attacks in cyber-physical microgrids. IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, 40(4), 3144-3159. View this article in WRRO
- Optimal self-consumption scheduling of highway electric vehicle charging station based on multi-agent deep reinforcement learning. Renewable Energy, 238. View this article in WRRO
- Detection-triggered recursive impact mitigation against secondary false data injection attacks in cyber-physical microgrids. IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, 16(2), 1744-1761. View this article in WRRO
- Spectral Impedance-Based Probabilistic Wideband Oscillatory Stability Analysis and Visualization. IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, 40(2), 1636-1648.
- Physics-aware watermarking embedded in unknown input observers for false data injection attack detection in cyber-physical microgrids. IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, 19, 7824-7840. View this article in WRRO
- Resilience improving strategy for power systems with high wind power penetration against uncertain attacks. IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy, 15(4), 2625-2637. View this article in WRRO
- Comprehensive review on dynamic state estimation techniques with cybersecurity applications. IET Smart Grid, 7(4), 370-385. View this article in WRRO
- Design flexible renewable energy penetrated power system to address long-run and short-run interactive inference. The Innovation Energy, 1(3). View this article in WRRO
- Virtual‐physical power flow method for cyber‐physical power system contingency and vulnerability assessment. IET Smart Grid, 7(1), 13-27. View this article in WRRO
- Secure Particle Filtering With Paillier Encryption–Decryption Scheme: Application to Multi-Machine Power Grids. IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, 15(1), 863-873.
- Techno-economic assessment of wireless charging systems for airport electric shuttle buses. Journal of Energy Storage, 64, 107123-107123.
- Infrastructure planning for airport microgrid integrated with electric aircraft and parking lot electric vehicles. eTransportation, 17. View this article in WRRO
- Towards reservation-based E-mobility service via hybrid of V2V and G2V charging modes. Energy, 268, 126737-126737.
- Techno-economic-environmental evaluation of aircraft propulsion electrification: Surrogate-based multi-mission optimal design approach. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 175, 113168-113168.
Book chapters
- A resilient control framework for enhancing cyber-security in microgrids In Nørregaard Jørgensen B, Ma ZG, Wijaya FD, Irnawan R & Sarjiya S (Ed.), Lecture Notes in Computer Science (pp. 372-378). Springer Nature Switzerland View this article in WRRO
Conference proceedings
- Developing Cyber-Physical Power System Co-Simulation Platform with Real-Time Digital Interface. 2025 IEEE Kiel PowerTech (pp 1-6), 29 June 2025 - 3 July 2025.
- A Power-Communication Co-Simulation Platform for Real-Time Microgrid Cyber Security Analysis. 2024 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence of Things and Systems (AIoTSys) (pp 1-6), 17 October 2024 - 19 October 2024.
- A Review on Defense Mechanism against the Denial of Service and False Data Injection in Cyber-Physical Power Systems. 2023 IEEE 6th International Electrical and Energy Conference (CIEEC) (pp 4539-4545), 12 May 2023 - 14 May 2023.
- Adaptive Robust Planner-Attacker-Operator Model Against Multistage Uncertain Malicious Attacks for Power Systems With Volatile Wind Power. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, 1-12.
- Grants
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- Royal Society International Exchanges Grant, “Multi-Agent Interactive Game and Network Co-Evolution for Shared Energy Storage Communities” £12,000, 2025-2027, IEC\NSFC\242449, as PI
- UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, “Digitalisation of Electrical Power and Energy Systems Operation (DEEPS)” £1,490,121, 2022-2026, MR/W011360/1, as PI
- EPSRC New Investigator Award, “Aviation-to-Grid: Grid flexibility through multiscale modelling and integration of power systems with electrified air transport” £402,860, 2022-2025, EP/W028905/1, as PI
- Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), “Human Resilience in Cybersecurity of Future Energy Systems” £100,000, 2023-2027, RQ0000024688, as PI
- UK Department for Transport, Transport-Technology Research and Innovation Grants, “Solar-Hydrogen-Storage Integrated Electric Vehicle Charging Station in Future Cities” £30,000, 2020-2021, T-TRIG 2020, as PI
- EPSRC, Supergen Energy Networks Hub Flexible Fund, “GRid flexibility by Electrifying Energy Networks for Airport (GREEN Airport)” £50,000, 2019-2021, EP/S00078X/2, as PI
- UK Department for Transport, Transport-Technology Research and Innovation Grants, “Aircraft to Grid (A2G): Hybrid and Smart Charging for Electric Aircraft” £30,000, 2019-2020, T-TRIG 2019, as PI
- Professional activities and memberships
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- Associate Editor, IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid (TSG)
- Associate Editor - IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy (TSE)
- Associate Editor - IEEE Transactions on Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems (TiCPS)
- Associate Editor, IEEE Power Engineering Letters (PELS)
- Associate Editor, Cyber-Physical Energy Systems (CPES)
- Associate Editor, Protection and Control of Modern Power Systems (PCMP)
- Associate Editor, Energy Conversion and Economics (ECE)
- Senior Member, IEEE
- Chartered Engineer, IET